Ainsworth Strange Situations Essay

The mother and infant would enter the room together. The mother would sit on one side of the room reading a magazine as the child would be placed on the floor near some toys. Once three minutes had past a stranger would enter the room sits down and talks to the mother of the child. The stranger would then move towards the infant and try and join in and play with the child.  The mother of the child would then leave the room, leaving the stranger and the child alone. The stranger would comfort the child and carry on playing with them. After around three minutes again the mother would enter and at the same time the stranger would then exit the room. Another three minutes would pass and the mother would depart again leaving the baby in the room on their own. The stranger then re-enters to comfort the child and play with them; he would then leave whilst the mother is reunited with her child.

In this procedure of stages, Ainsworth was able to observe the child in ‘strange situations’ and work out the infant’s different behaviors towards certain people. Ainsworth carried out these stages to look into separation anxiety, Stranger anxiety and then observed the child to recall if the infant used their mother as a ‘safe base.’ Ainsworth discovered that there were three type of attachment. These consisted of Secure infants (type B), insecure avoidant attachment (type A) and Insecure ambivalent attachment (type C). The secure infant, 70% of children fitted into this category. This type of attachment was very popular in children and the carer was often seen as a safe base. Children were given a positive working model and the carer was seen to be sensitive and supportive. Type A was the insecure avoidant, 20% of the children fell into this category. The infants were observed as classing themselves as unworthy or unacceptable. They do however have a working model of themselves yet its classes as negative. The carer would seem very rejecting. This could be because of many reasons for example, teenage pregnancy, A single parent or there are other siblings within the family. The last type is type C resistant or ambivalent. Only 10% of the children observed fitted into this category.  The children who were examined were seen as having a negative self image and exaggerated towards the carer to gain an emotional response. The infants alternated between closeness and distance and where unsure at times.

Overall I feel that the Ainsworths theory on strange situations had good reliability and showed consistent results. As well as this the method gave a great deal of information in a relatively short space of time about attachments in children. However some people have criticized Ainsworth theory and have stated that it lacks validity because of the unfamiliar and strange look of the play room. This is not the child’s home and not what’s its used to so will clearly act differently. There are also some ethical issues relating to this method. For example the infant might have been stressed due to the mother leaving a child and a stranger interacting with them. However the mother and the researcher would stop the test if the baby got too distressed.