Evaluating Types of Attachment

Evaluating Types of Attachment

1. Validity

   • The strange situation aims to measure the attachment type of a child. However it is thought that it may not 100% study this.
   • Main and Weston (1981) found that children behaved differently depending on which parent they were with. suggesting that the classification of an attachment type may not be valid because it is only measuring one relationship rather than an underlying personality in the infant causing them to act the way that they do.
     • Others take the view however that this doesn't matter as it is only one relationship that determines attachment type. With Bowlby suggesting that attachment begins as the relationship between infant and primary attachment figure becomes internalised.
   • Predictive Validity is demonstrated in the correlations found between early attachment types and later behaviours. As well as Construct Validity being demonstrated as other studies have supported the four attachment types identified and confirm there distinctively different categories.

2. Reliability

   • A measurement is reliable if it is consistent.
   • The strange situation lacks reliability if the observations made by different people were not the same. This is down to different interpretations gaining different results.
     • It has however been made more reliable by the comparisons of each of the different people on the panel adding to that reliability.
   • Ainsworth found almost perfect agreement on the attachment types therefore making it more reliable.

3. Ethics

   • The intention of the Strange Situation is to cause mild distress to the Infant, therefore meaning that this could be ethically questionable and seen as unacceptable to some.
   • Ainsworth states that the stress caused was not meant to be any more harrowing than that would be during a real life event therefore showing the ethics of the experiment.
     • However in episode 6 20% of the infants were reported to have been 'crying desperately'. Suggesting that as the technique causes the potential for distress, it is ethically innappropriate to use on infants.