Ainsworth's Strange Situation
Ainsworth's Strange Situation is a research method used to assess attachment styles in infants. It involves observing how infants react to being separated from and reunited with their caregivers in a controlled environment. The study identified three main attachment styles: secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-ambivalent, which have been influential in understanding early childhood development and the parent-child relationship.
5 Key excerpts on "Ainsworth's Strange Situation"
eBook - ePubDevelopmental Psychology
Revisiting the Classic Studies
- Alan M Slater, Paul C Quinn, Alan M Slater, Paul C Quinn(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...Specifically, Ainsworth argued that the infant’s confidence in the caregiver’s availability contributes to a sense of security, facilitating the infant’s active exploration of the environment (Ainsworth, 1979). In her first ethological study of attachment in Uganda, Ainsworth (1963) observed that infants varied in their security with mothers, which she found was closely associated with the quality of mothers’ caregiving. Such observations led her to assert that sensitive caregiving in which the mother promptly and appropriately responds to the infant supports the infant’s confidence in the mother’s availability in times of need, in turn fostering a sense of security. Ainsworth further tested these ideas in her Baltimore project (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). In embarking on this study, she laid the foundation for all subsequent empirical research on individual differences in infant attachment. Specifically, within the context of this study, she developed the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), the gold-standard measure of individual differences in infant attachment, which she validated via extensive in-home observations of mothers and infants. The SSP is a 20-minute, structured laboratory procedure in which infants undergo a series of increasingly stressful separations from and subsequent reunions with the primary caregiver, typically the mother, designed to activate the infants’ attachment behavioral system. The 20-minute procedure is detailed in Figure 2.1. Ainsworth identified three patterns of infant attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. These attachment patterns are described below and are determined according to the organization of secure base and safe haven behavior exhibited by the infant in relation to the mother...
eBook - ePubDeveloping Attachment in Early Years Settings
Nurturing secure relationships from birth to five years
- Veronica Read(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Ellie is by her side again asking: ‘What happened? Why is Alex late?’ This is typical of Ellie, who seems to watch every coming and going in the setting and needs to unexpectedly enter into conversations between adults as if they are her equals. As Clare describes this experience of being with Ellie, she says that she feels increasingly jumpy inside when she is with her and ‘tied’ to her. It is rare for Ellie to lose herself in any activity and her demands for Clare’s attention leave this practitioner feeling both annoyed and guilty as she is unable to engage fully with other children. The work of Mary Ainsworth from 1969 onwards has led to numerous studies focusing on how children respond to being separated from their primary carers and how they behaved when reunited (Ainsworth et al. 1978). I am going to describe a simplified version of a strange situation test, but you may wish to read in greater depth about the original ‘Strange Situation Test’, a protocol which consisted of eight episodes. You will probably find you have some further thoughts about Ellie’s situation, too. You will, by the end of this chapter, be familiar with four attachment styles and the parenting styles that may bring them about: secure; insecure/ambivalent; insecure/avoidant; disorganized. The strange situation test If we were to invite a parent and child of 12 months to play with the toys provided in a laboratory/playroom and then ask the carer to quietly leave the room for a brief period of time and then return again, there are four types of response an observer might see according to the child’s attachment style. 1 Attachment style of a securely attached child This child’s primary carer has been sensitively attuned to the child from birth and when distressed has offered comfort promptly and appropriately (Brisch 2002). The parent has had the ability to imagine the child’s situation and respond promptly to their communications...
eBook - ePubAttachment and Adult Clinical Practice
An Integrated Perspective on Developmental Theory, Neurobiology, and Emotional Regulation
- Toni Mandelbaum(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Again, this may be an adaptive strategy to maintain proximity to rejecting caregivers. Insecure/ambivalent infants persistently turn their attention toward a caregiver as a strategy to engage an inconsistently available caregiver and have difficulty exploring the surrounding environment. By focusing attention on the caregiver, the infant or child is maximizing the chance that the caregiver will respond positively to attachment needs (Main & Hesse, 1990). In other words, for those who are insecurely attached, there is an imbalance between exploration and attachment behavior where shifting or restricting attention is used to maintain proximity. This leads to a certain inflexibility in focus, whereas secure infants are able to flexibly shift attention to maintain the attachment bond (Main, Hesse, & Kaplan, 2005). The Strange Situation has come to be used widely as a tool for assessing the quality of infant–mother attachment as well as for measuring attachment styles. Because of the results from the Strange Situation, attachment behavior was now divided into three categories: secure, ambivalent/resistant, and avoidant. Later on, a former student of Ainsworth’s, Mary Main, along with Eric Hesse and Judith Solomon, introduced a fourth classification, that of disorganized attachment (Main & Hesse, 1990; Main & Solomon, 1990). In several earlier studies, there were children who were difficult to classify with the A, B, C system because they had no observable organized, coherent strategy to negotiate separations or reunions. When researchers forced an assignment to the best fitting traditional classification, many unclassifiable infants were misidentified as “secure.” Main and Solomon (1990) reviewed the data and concluded that infants who were termed unclassifiable exhibited conflicted patterns of behavior where there were sequential or simultaneous attempts to approach and to avoid attachment figures...
eBook - ePub- Paul Holmes, Steve Farnfield, Paul Holmes, Steve Farnfield(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...However, this is less surprising when one realises that this group of deprived children and families had to try to survive in very unstable social circumstances. This could be a group with a majority of children experiencing (radical) change of situation, which in turn may change attachment representation. Measuring attachment Even though virtually all children become attached, the quality of their attachment relationship differs. This quality of attachment can be observed in stressful situations where the caregiver is not immediately available to comfort the child. The SSP was designed by Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth et al. 1978) and is a standardised simulation of a stressful situation. It has been in use for decades and is the best-known instrument for measuring infant attachment. The origins of the Strange Situation procedure The SSP was not invented overnight. The roots of its development date back to the first half of the twentieth century. Mary Ainsworth wrote her dissertation in 1939 under the guidance of William Blatz, often referred to as the Doctor Spock of Canada (Wright 1996). It is very possible that this is where her interest in what we now call attachment stems from. Blatz lectured on his security theory for years and wrote briefly about it in his books, but only clearly put his complete theory in writing in his last book, Human Security, which was published posthumously (Blatz 1966). According to Blatz, a child starts off having to depend on his parents. If the child feels certain the parent is going to be there for him, no matter what, the dependence is ‘secure’ and the child feels comfortable to go and explore. The parent acts as a ‘secure base’...
eBook - ePubEmerging Topics on Father Attachment
Considerations in Theory, Context and Development
- Lisa A. Newland, Harry S. Freeman, Diana D. Coyl, Lisa A. Newland, Harry S. Freeman, Diana D. Coyl(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The difference in age for the two procedures in this sample is explained by the fact that the SS was carried out approximately one month after the RS due to concern that the SS, being more anxiety-producing due to the parent–child separations, might influence the RS more than the reverse. The third sample comprised 21 father–child dyads with 12 boys and nine girls. The two procedures were conducted at one-month intervals in a counterbalanced fashion with this sample (i.e. the RS was done first in half the cases). The three samples were not significantly different in terms of child and parent age, child sex ratio or parental level of schooling. However, the sample of mothers differed from the two father samples in many respects. Mothers worked outside the home less (F = 4.41, p <.05; Scheffe, p <.05) and spent more time with their children (F = 23.62, p <.001; Scheffe, p <.001) than the fathers did. Mothers' family income was lower. This corresponds to the situation generally described in the literature. Instruments Sociodemographic questionnaire A sociodemographic questionnaire was used to collect basic information on the parent, child and family (see Table 1). The strange situation procedure (SS) The SS is a procedure divided into eight episodes and which takes place in an unfamiliar room with toys. During the procedure, infants are exposed to mildly stressful events, including the entrance of an unfamiliar female adult and two separations from their mothers followed by reunions. Infant attachment patterns are coded by trained observers and classified as secure (B), insecure avoidant (A) or insecure resistant (C), based on the Ainsworth et al. (1978) scoring system. Then, the Main and Solomon's (1990) scoring system is used to code disorganised attachment (D). This system produces a disorganisation score from 1 to 9, with the score of 5 being the cut-off point for placing a child in the D category...
