types of attachment

• Ainsworth's strange situation


  Lab observation designed to measure the quality of attachment and the differences in attachment styles in infants
• Ainsworth's strange situation procedure


  1. Mother and infant left to play

  2. Stranger enters and attempts to interact

  3. Mother leaves while stranger is in room

  4. Mother returns and stranger leaves

  5. Mother leaves

  6. Stranger returns

  7. Mother returns and stranger leaves
• What Ainsworth was looking for


  • How willing the infant was to explore the room
  • How the infant reacted to the stranger
  • How the infant reacted to being left
  • How the infant reacted upon reunion with the mother
• Ainsworth's attachment classifications


  • Type B Secure (70%)
  • Type A Insecure Avoidant (15%)
  • Type C Insecure Resistant (15%)
• Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis


  Mother's behaviour toward her infant will predict attachment type
• The majority of infants in Ainsworth's study were securely attached
• Positives of the strange situation

  • Very reliable as it is easy to repeat
  • Inter-rater reliability as more than one observer was used and the experiment was filmed
  • Categories used to observe the infants are reliable
• Negatives of the strange situation

  • Low population validity as it was a small sample from similar backgrounds
  • Lacks ecological validity as it does not represent real-life caregiver-infant interactions
• Ainsworth was aware of the lack of ecological validity and called the study 'Strange'
• The strange situation may not be valid in other cultures where child-rearing practices are different
• The strange situation assumes the mother is the primary caregiver, ignoring other attachment figures
• Types of attachment


  • Secure
  • Insecure-avoidant
  • Insecure resistant
• Secure attachment (Type B)


  Infants were happy to explore the room, used the caregiver as a safe base, showed separation anxiety, avoided the stranger, and were quickly comforted on reunion
• Insecure-avoidant attachment (Type A)


  Infants were happy to explore but did not refer to the caregiver, showed no separation anxiety, treated the stranger the same as the caregiver, and ignored the caregiver on reunion
• Insecure resistant attachment (Type C)

  Infants did not explore the room, were reluctant to leave the caregiver, showed separation anxiety, avoided the stranger, and were not able to be calmed on reunion
• Comparison of attachment types

  • Exploration
  • Stranger
  • Separation
  • Reunion
• Why an infant has a particular attachment type

  Responsive caregiver leads to secure attachment

  Unresponsive caregiver leads to insecure-avoidant attachment

  Ambivalent caregiver leads to insecure-resistant attachment
• Implications of attachment types for later relationships

  • Insecure-avoidant: May reject others to avoid rejection

  Secure: Stable relationships, able to cope with rejection

  Insecure-resistant: Fear rejection, cling to others
• Main found a 4th 'disorganised' attachment type not covered by Ainsworth's original categories
• Ainsworth's study was ethnocentric, only using a US sample
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's meta-analysis

  Examined attachment types across 8 countries, finding secure attachment was most common, with cultural differences in the prevalence of insecure-avoidant vs insecure-resistant
• There is more diversity in attachment types within a culture than between cultures
• Strengths of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study

  • Quicker and cheaper than alternatives

  Meta-analysis allowed data from countries with language/cultural barriers

  Reliable and representative
• Limitations of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study

  • Hard to check validity of original studies

  Many countries/continents missing

  Imbalance of US studies skewing the overall results

  Strange situation may not be valid in all cultures