Attachments to mothers and fathers have been proven to be independent – Main and Weston (1981) found that children reacted differently depending on which parent they were with. This shows that the attachment types shown by the Strange Situation are based on qualities of distinct relationships as opposed to a child’s characteristics. The Strange Situation places infants into one of three categories, however Main and Solomon (1986) argued that a fourth attachment type, called disorganized and disorientated, was displayed in a small number of children. Their behaviour was a confusing mixture of approach and avoidance, and they generally were unable to form a strategy to cope with the Strange Situation.
There are also marked intercultural differences in the ways infants react, as shown by Van Ijzendioorm and Kroonenburg (1998), who carried out 32 studies worldwide. Overall, Type B (secure attachment) is prevalent, but there is a higher proportion of type A in western Europe, and of type C in Israel and Japan. One Japanese study also showed a complete absence of type A.
If the Strange Situation is to be considered valid, infants who are classified as securely attached should be better adjusted both socially and emotionally in later life. Sroufe (1983) found this to be the case, as infants who were securely attached at 2 years were generally less aggressive, more popular and with higher self-esteem, however Maslin and Frankel (1985) found that attachment type at 12 months failed to predict behavioural problems at 3 years.
The fact that the Strange Situation is laboratory-based has led to heavy criticism, as it is argued that it represents a highly artificial approach to attachment behaviour study, and it was pointed out by Bronfenbrenner (1979) that infants’ attachment behaviour is much stronger in a laboratory than they are at home. The study also focuses too much upon the behaviour of the infantr concerned, and not enough on that of the mother, which can have an effect on the results collected.
It is hard to differentiate between the infant-mother attachment relationship and the species-characteristic behaviour from which it stems, as infants are predisposed to become attached. As the form of attachments in young children depends in the highly complex, not yet understood ways upon the sensitivity of the mother and temperament of the infant, it is unclear as of yet whether early attachment does influence social and emotional development in later life.