In 1969, American psychologist Mary Ainsworth gave developmental psychology a new procedure for studying attachment in infants. She called it the strange situation classification, and it's widely referred to as simply the strange situation. As an adult, you know when you've formed an attachment with someone. You know how it feels, and you know how to express your feelings in words.
However, when it comes to babies and young children, they haven't yet developed these skills, and therefore researchers must turn to more subtle techniques. Such as the Strange Situation, which measures the security of an attachment in 1-2 year olds. A 20 minute participatory observation, during which the researcher observes the infant's behavioural responses to a series of scenarios.
Ainsworth's Strange Situation includes eight stages, each lasting roughly three minutes. To start with, the mother, baby and researcher are all together in the room, a small neutrally coloured space with some toys for the baby to play with. The experimenter leaves after around a minute and the mother and baby are alone for approximately three minutes.
In this stage, researchers are watching to see whether the child is confident to explore the new environment or whether she stays close to the mother. A stranger joins the mother and baby in the room. The researchers record the baby's response to this unfamiliar newcomer, who is left alone with the baby when the mother leaves the room.
At this stage, the researchers are observing the baby's behavior for signs of separation anxiety. Three minutes later, the mother returns and the researchers observe for the baby's reunion response. The stranger leaves the room. A few minutes more and the mother returns. mother leaves the room too, leaving the baby alone for the first time in the experiment.
The next person to enter the room is the stranger, and finally after 3 minutes, the mother returns and the stranger leaves. All in all, a perfectly strange situation for all involved. So, what were the researchers measuring? When the mother was in the room with the baby, they scored the infant's behaviour on. four measures proximity and contact seeking contact maintaining avoidance of proximity and contact and resistance to contact and comforting the baby's exploratory behaviors were also recorded as she explored the environment ainsworth reported that infants display one of three attachment types securely attached and showed distress when separated from their mother, were avoidant of the stranger when alone but friendly in the presence of their mother, and were happy when the mother returned from outside the room.
70% of children studied fell into this category. 15% of children demonstrated an ambivalent attachment with their mother. These children showed intense distress when the mother left the room and demonstrated a significant fear of the stranger.
When the mother returned to the room, ambivalent children approached the mother, but rejected contact. Ainsworth reported that a final 15% had an avoidant attachment style. Such infants show no interest when the mother leaves the room and play happily with the stranger.
When the mother returns, avoidant children barely seem to notice. In 1990, Maine and Solomon added that a very small percentage were inconsistent in their behaviours, and defined this attachment style as disorganised. Ainsworth's caregiver sensitivity hypothesis suggests that differences in infants'attachment styles are dependent on the mother's behaviour towards the baby during a critical period of development.
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