Ainsworth's Strange Situation - Evaluation

Ainsworth's Strange Situation - Evaluation

1. Low generalisability

   • Only used middle-class Americans
     • Cannot be generalised to other social classes or countries

2. High Reliability

   • Study was highly operationalised
     • Ainsworth used 4 specific criteria to determine how secure an attachment was
       • (Stranger fear, separation anxiety, reunion behaviour and willingness to explore the room)
     • Reliability can be checked as easy to replicate
   • Strange situation technique became a paradigm for testing attachment
   • High reliability of classifications
     • Waters (1978) assessed 50 infants and found that Ainsworth's categories provided evidence for stable individual differences between the infants
   • Wartner et al. (1994) conducted study in Germany and found 78% of children were classified in same way at ages 1 and 6 years
     • Attachment classifications have high reliability
     • High test-retest reliability

3. Ecological Validity

   • Low ecological validity as artificial way of measuring attachment
     • Lab based with mother and stranger following a 'script'
       • Not like everyday situation so low ecological validity
     • Brofenbrenner (1979) - infants' attachment behaviour is much stronger in lab than at home due to strangeness of new environment
     • Lamb et al. (1985) criticised it for being highly artificial

4. Internal Validity

   • SS implies that children have certain attachment types and that this influences personality
     • Kokkinos (2007) - insecurely attached children are more involved with bullying and victimisation
     • Sroufe (1983) - infants rated as secure grew up to be more popular, have higher self esteem and be social leaders
     • Bates et al. (1985) claimed early attachment style does not predict behavioral problems at 3 y/o
     • Main & Weston (1981) - children act differently in SS depending on which parent they were with
       • Children may be securely attached to one parent but insecurely attached to the other
       • Attachment types linked to individual relationship with caregivers and are not set characteristics of children
   • SS focused too much on behaviour of infants and not on behaviour of mother

5. Ethics

   • Deliberately stresses infants
     • Not protected from harm
     • However, Marrone (1998) pointed out that stressed caused was no greater than in everyday situations e.g. being left with unfamiliar babysitter
     • Separation periods were cut short if child became too stressed

6. Culturally biased

   • Only observed US children so classifies according to US values
     • Desirable attachments in US may not be seen as desirable in other cultures
       • Test used worldwide to judge infants in other cultures
         • Called an imposed etic