Journal #7 Mary Ainsworth's Attachment Theory
http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/strange_situation_study.html
Mary Ainsworth conducted a experiments involving children, its caregiver and a stranger. The children that were tested were two years old. The experiment had 8 episodes. During the first episode, the experimenter leaves the parent or caregiver and baby alone to play, then the parent will sit on the side while the baby plays and the researcher looks at how the child uses the parent as a piece of security during that part. After they let the child play for awhile, a stranger enters the room and talks to the parent and the researcher observes the strangers anxiety. During the fourth episode, the parent will leave the room and the stranger will stay, the stranger lets the baby play and offers comfort to the baby if needed. The Researcher observes the separation anxiety that the baby experiences during this time. For the next episode the parent will return to the room and greets the baby, and offers comfort if is needed by the child. the strangers leaves the room during that time and the researcher record the reactions to the reunion during that time. Then the parent leaves so the baby is the only one in the room, and the researcher again observe the separation anxiety of the child. After the researcher are done recording their observations the stranger again enters the room, and offers comfort to the child. The experimenters observe the strangers anxiety and the ability of the baby to get comforted by the baby. Then comes the eighth and final episode, the parent returns the room and greets the baby, and offers it support and lets the baby return to play and the observers record the baby’s reaction to the parent returning.
While doing these test, the researcher record whether the child experiences stranger anxiety, separation anxiety or both. Separation anxiety is found when the parent or caregiver leaves the room. Stranger anxiety is how the child will react to the stranger, examples of those reactions would be crying or hiding from the person. There are three different types of attachments that the child could experience: Secure Attachment, Anxious-Ambivalent Insecure Attachment, and Anxious-Avoidant Insecure Attachment. Secure attachment is where a child is securely attached to a caregiver, and when the child is with the caregiver the child will engage with the strangers, it will be visibly upset when the caregivers leaves and happy when it returns. The child will not engage with the stranger without the caregiver in the room. Anxious-Ambivalent Insecure Attachment is when a child is anxious around strange, even if the caregiver is present. When the caregiver departs the child is very distressed and when the caregiver returns the child will seek to remain close to the caregiver. Anxious-Avoidant Insecure Attachment is when the child show little to no emotion when the caregiver leaves or returns. The child does not explore much, regardless of who is there, they also will not show not much emotion for whoever is in the room or even if it is empty.
I think that Mary would say that the attachment of children is a lot different in today’ s society because with things like day care, kids are introduced to many different people and they are just left with people that they don’t know, and are expected to feel perfectly comfortable with it. To go along with that, because the parent will leave the child with those stranger to the child they will feel more comfortable with other stranger that they shouldn't be more comfortable with especially with some of the people we have out in the world. I feel that if the child sees some sort of confirmation between the stranger and the parent that child feels they could be comfortable with that person and that they could be comfortable with people that maybe they haven’t seen with the parent even if they think they have.
Sources:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/mary-ainsworth.html
http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/attachment/online/inge_origins.pdf
