Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Ainsworth and Bell (1970):
The Strange Situation
- AIM
- To produce a method for
assessing quality of attachment
- Place infant in a situation of mild stress (to
encourage infant to seek comfort) and of novelty (to
encourage exploration)
- Comfort seeking and exploration
behaviours are indicators of quality of
attachment
- PROCEDURES
- 100 middle-class American
infants and their mothers
- Observed behaviour of infants and their mothers
during set of predetermined activities
- Separation anxiety
- Stranger anxiety
- Reunion behaviour
- Infant's willingness to explore
- FINDINGS
- Infants can be classified into
three broad groups
- Securely attached (type B)
- Explored the unfamiliar room
- Subdued when mother left room but
greeted her positively upon return
- Mothers were sensitive
- 66% of infants
- Avoidant-insecure (type A)
- Did not use mother as secure base
when exploring the room
- Were not concerned about
mother's absence
- Showed little interest when
mother returned
- 22% of infants
- Mothers sometimes
ignored infants
- Resistant-insecure (type C)
- Showed intense distress
when mother left room
- Rejected mother
when she returned
- 12% of infants
- Mothers behaved
ambivalently
- CONCLUSIONS
- There are significant individual
differences between infants
- Most of the North American
children observed were securely
attached
- There appears to be an association
between mothers' behaviour and
infants' attachment type
- Suggests that mothers' behaviour
may be important in determining
attachment type
- EVALUATION
- Findings and conclusions are culturally
biased to middle-class American infants
- Cannot make generalizations about
ALL infant behaviours
- Lacks population validity
- Strange Situation enables us to assess
attachment between children and primary
caregiver, and how attachment type relates
to later behaviours