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Child Psychology

Ainsworth and Bell (1970) the Strange Situation: insecure types, conclusions and evaluation

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 03

Overview

Recall questions on how insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant infants behave in the Strange Situation, Ainsworth's conclusion about maternal sensitivity, the procedure's strengths, validity, ethnocentrism and ethics, and the later disorganised attachment type.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Evaluation

Give one weakness of the Strange Situation relating to validity.

Who and when

What did Ainsworth conclude was the source of these differences?

Evaluation

Give one strength of the procedure.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How does an insecure-avoidant infant behave?

    Model answer

    They show little distress when the mother leaves, ignore or turn away from her when she returns, and treat the stranger much as they treat the mother.

  2. 2

    How does an insecure-resistant infant behave?

    Model answer

    They explore very little, become intensely distressed at separation, and on reunion both seek contact and angrily resist it, so they are very hard to comfort.

  3. 3

    What did Ainsworth conclude was the source of these differences?

    Model answer

    Differences in how sensitively and consistently the mother had responded to the infant's signals in the months before, observed during home visits.

  4. 4

    Give one strength of the procedure.

    Model answer

    The eight episodes are standardised and the behaviours are operationalised into rating scales, so the procedure can be replicated exactly and two independent observers allow inter-rater reliability to be checked.

  5. 5

    Give one weakness of the Strange Situation relating to validity.

    Model answer

    The playroom was unfamiliar and the mothers knew they were being watched, so behaviour may not reflect ordinary life, and the classification may describe one particular relationship rather than a quality of the child.

  6. 6

    Why is the study criticised as ethnocentric?

    Model answer

    The sample was entirely white, middle-class and American, yet later cross-cultural work found more avoidant classifications in Germany and more resistant ones in Japan, so applying these categories worldwide imposes one culture's idea of a good attachment.

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