Mary Ainsworth Concluded That the Quality of Infant Attachments Can Be Determined by Looking at:

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The Strange Situation procedure: The original test of the baby-parent bond

We hear a lot about "secure attachment relationships." But what exactly exercise researchers mean by this term? Psychologist Mary Ainsworth first devised the Strange Situation process to appraise the quality of an baby'south attachment to his or her female parent.

This commodity

• explains the procedure,
• discusses how babies reply, and
• reviews why some children are insecurely-attached.

Information technology also considers an important question: To what extent has research over-emphasized the function of the mother? Shouldn't we also exist talking about the office of fathers, grandparents, and other caregivers?

What is a secure zipper?

According to the theories of John Bowlby (1988), a kid is securely-fastened if she is confident of her caregiver'southward support. The attachment figure serves every bit a "secure base of operations" from which the child can confidently explore the world.

Secure attachment is also associated with

• keeping track of the caregiver during exploration,
• approaching or touching the caregiver when anxious or distressed;
• finding condolement in proximity and contact

And, in the long-term, kids with secure attachments seem to have opens in a new windowmany advantages – emotional, social, medical, and cognitive.

Simply how can you know if researchers would classify your own baby as securely attached? How practise they actually mensurate attachment security?

The original method, developed by the influential psychologist Mary Ainsworth, is the laboratory procedure chosen the "Strange State of affairs" (Ainsworth et al 1978).

Typically, the Strange Situation tests how babies or immature children respond to the temporary absence of their mothers.

Here's how it works.

The Foreign Situation

To exam a child'due south "attachment fashion," researchers put the kid and her mother (these studies near ever focus on the mother) alone in an experimental room.

The room has toys or other interesting things in it, and the mother lets the kid explore the room on her ain.

Subsequently the child has had time to explore, a stranger enters the room and talks with the mother. And so the stranger shifts attention to the child. As the stranger approaches the child, the mother sneaks away.

Later several minutes, the mother returns. She comforts her child and then leaves once more. The stranger leaves as well.

A few minutes later on, the stranger returns and interacts with the kid.

Finally, the mother returns and greets her kid.

How children respond to the Strange Situation

As suggested by its name, the Strange Situation was designed to present children with an unusual, only not overwhelmingly frightening, feel (Ainsworth et al 1978). When a child undergoes the Strange Situation, researchers are interested in two things:

1. How much the child explores the room on his own, and

2. How the child responds to the return of his mother

Typically, a kid's response to the Foreign Situation follows one of iv patterns.

Securely-attached children:

Free exploration, and happiness upon the mother's return

The securely-attached child explores the room freely when his mother is present. He may be distressed when his mother leaves, and he explores less when she is absent. But he is happy when she returns.

If he cries, he approaches his mother and holds her tightly. He is comforted by beingness held, and, in one case comforted, he is soon ready to resume his independent exploration of the earth. His mother is responsive to his needs. As a upshot, he knows he can depend on her when he is under stress (Ainsworth et al 1978).

Avoidant-insecure children:

Little exploration, and petty emotional response to the female parent

The avoidant-insecure child doesn't explore much, and she doesn't prove much emotion when her mother leaves. She shows no preference for her mother over a complete stranger. When her mother returns, she tends to avoid or ignore her (Ainsworth et al 1978).

Resistant-insecure (as well called "anxious" or "clashing") children:

Little exploration, cracking separation anxiety, and an clashing response to the female parent upon her return

Like the avoidant child, the resistant-insecure child doesnt explore much on his ain. Merely unlike the avoidant child, the resistant child is wary of strangers and is very distressed when his mother leaves.

When the female parent returns, the resistant child is clashing. Although he wants to re-establish shut proximity to his female parent, he is likewise resentful—fifty-fifty angry—at his mother for leaving him in the first identify. Equally a result, the resistant child may decline his mother's attempts at contact (Ainsworth et al 1978).

Disorganized-insecure children:

Piffling exploration, and a confused response to the mother.

The disorganized child may exhibit a mix of avoidant and resistant behaviors. Simply the main theme is one of confusion and anxiety (Primary and Solomon 1986). Disorganized-insecure children are at risk for a diverseness of behavioral and developmental issues

What causes secure attachments? What causes insecure attachments?

1. Parenting beliefs and parenting manner

Although parenting alone doesn't determine your child'southward attachment status, information technology may play a very important role. How can nosotros exist certain? Information technology's tricky because most studies report mere correlations, leaving us uncertain nigh causation.

For example, secure attachments are associated with opens in a new windowsensitive, responsive parenting. Merely why?

Maybe infants develop secure attachments because they've inherited certain genes from their parents — genes that requite rise both to the tendency to develop secure attachments, and to the tendency to be sensitive and responsive toward infants.

A compelling argument confronting this possibility comes from adoption studies. Like other babies, adoptive infants are more likely to develop secure attachments when their parents are sensitive and responsive (Verissimo and Salvaterra 2006).

And studies testify that early intervention — instruction new parents how to increase their sensitivity — improves attachment security (Mountain et al 2017).

What else do we know well-nigh parenting and zipper?

Avoidantly-attached children tend to take parent(southward) who are emotionally unavailable or rejecting.

In theory, children learn that their caregivers will not answer to their emotional needs. Every bit a result, they gives upwards on trying to signal their needs.

The avoidantly-fastened kid is relatively common in Western Europe (van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988; run across below). This prevalence of avoidant attachments may reverberate traditional Western European child-rearing values, which de-emphasize physical contact and discourage parents from comforting children who cry (e.g., Suizzo 2002; Valentin 2005).

Compared with avoidantly-attached kids, broken-hearted or resistant-insecure children may have parent(s) who are more than emotionally demonstrative, merely not tuned into their children'due south needs.

However—co-ordinate to popular theory—these parents tend to be inconsistent, and they aren't specially sensitive. They offer comfort, just in a way that answers a child's needs.  on their own terms, rather than co-ordinate to a child's needs.

Disorganized attachment is linked with caregiver behavior that (intentionally or unintentionally) frightens children.

Children who are driveling or neglected are more than likely to suffer from disorganized attachment (Barnett et al 1999). But babies don't accept to be driveling or neglected to develop disorganized attachment.

In some cases, parents themselves may be broken-hearted or frightened, and transmit these emotions to their infants (Primary and Hess 1990). And parents might simply exist insensitive to what babies observe agonizing–like suddenly looming over a baby'south face (David and Lyons-Ruth 2007; Gedaly and Leerkes 2016).

If this sounds like yous, is there anything you tin do virtually it? Research suggests yous can. In studies where parents from at-hazard families were coached on how to better read their children'southward cues, kids were less likely to develop disorganized attachments (Wright et al 2017).

2. Infant temperament

Similar adults, infants differ in temperament, and these temperamental differences might play a role in the development of an babe'south attachment relationships (Fuertes et al 2006; Seifer at al 1992).

For case, when researchers tested oxytocin levels in 18 newborns, they found that babies with higher oxytocin levels were more likely to solicit parental soothing and show greater interest in social interaction (Clark et al 2013). Perhaps it'due south easier for such babies to learn that they take a secure base.

By the same token, infants who are "difficult," or more reactive to stressful situations, may require higher levels of parental responsiveness to develop secure attachments (van den Nail 1994).

3. Stress

In theory, stress could cause insecure attachment by interfering with a kid'south ability to perceive and interpret his mother's behavior. Stress could likewise make information technology difficult for a child to select the most appropriate, healthy response to being separated from, and reunited with, his female parent (Waters and Valenzuela 1999).

Environmental stressors—like poor diet—may therefore be responsible for high rates of insecure attachment amid some populations (like impoverished Chilean children, encounter below).

In addition, stress may interact with parenting and epigenetics — variations in the manner our genes get expressed. In one report, children who experienced high levels of stress and depression levels of maternal support were more probable to develop anxious attachments — just only if they too had a highly methylated NR3C1 gene (Bosmans et al 2018).

4. Genetic differences

Studies accept reported links between disorganized-insecure attachment and the variants of several genes, including the dopamine D4 receptor gene (east.g., Lakatos et al 2000).

The pattern makes sense if these polymorphisms render the encephalon less sensitive to neurotransmitters that make friendly social interactions feel pleasurable. Affected babies would be less motivated to seek comfort from their caregivers, and therefore less likely to develop secure attachments.

But do the data tell united states a articulate story? Not yet. Some studies have failed to replicate fundamental findings (Roisman et al 2013). One possibility is that the effects of the gene depend the presence or absence of sensitive maternal care, too as other characteristics of the child (Wazana et al 2015).

5. Very long hours in non-parental kid intendance

Studies have consistently failed to detect that fourth dimension spent in daycare is linked with insecure zipper. Merely it'southward possible that the risk increases when children spend an unusually long fourth dimension away from parents.

In a study of mother-infant attachment security, researchers constitute that babies were more than likely to testify evidence of disorganized zipper if they spent more lx hours per week in non-maternal intendance (Hazen et al 2015).

What well-nigh cultural differences?

International studies of the Strange Situation

In studies recognizing 3 zipper classifications (secure, avoidant-insecure, and resistant-insecure), almost 21% of American infants have been classified as avoidant-insecure, 65% as secure, and xiv% as resistant-insecure.

The same distribution is found when researchers pool the results of studies conducted worldwide (van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988).

However, there are local variations.

A study conducted in Bielfeld, Germany has reported relatively high rates of avoidantly-attached infants (52%–Grossman et al 1981).

And research conducted elsewhere–in Indonesia, Nihon, and the kibbutzim of Israel—has reported relatively loftier rates of resistantly-fastened infants (Zevalkink et al 1999; van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988).

Studies recognizing a fourth nomenclature–disorganized attachment–as well vary past local population. The prevalence of disorganized attachment among middle course, white American children is well-nigh 12% (Principal and Solomon 1990). Among the children of American boyish mothers, the charge per unit is over 31% (Broussard 1995).

Disorganized zipper has besides been reported to be relatively mutual amid the Dogon of Mali (~25%, True et al 2001), infants living on the outskirts of Cape Boondocks, South Africa (~26%, Tomlinson et al 2005), children from low income families in Zambia (~29%, Mooya et al 2016), and undernourished children in Chile (Waters and Valenzuela 1999).

Why local populations differ

In some cases, these outcomes may reflect differences in the way infants perceive the Foreign State of affairs, rather than real differences in attachment.

For instance, Israeli children raised in kibbutzim rarely meet strangers. As a result, their loftier rates of resistant behavior during the Foreign Situation examination may take had more than to do with heightened fear than with the nature of their maternal bonds (Sagi et al 1991).

Similarly, the Japanese results were probably skewed by the facts that Japanese infants are nigh never separated from their mothers (Miyake et al 1995). Nor do Japanese people value independence and independent exploration to the same degree that Westerners do, with the result that otherwise securely-attached babies may explore less (Rothbaum et al 2000).

But in other cases, results of the Strange State of affairs may reveal genuine cultural differences in the fashion that children have fastened to their mothers.

For example, researchers analyzing a variety of zipper studies concluded that German and American infants perceived the Strange Situation in similar ways (Sagi et al 1991).

And then the relatively loftier incidence of avoidant-insecure attachments in Deutschland may reflect existent differences in the fashion that some Germans approach parenting.

Has zipper research placed too much emphasis on mothers? Some evolutionary considerations.

One criticism of the Strange Situation procedure is that it has focused well-nigh exclusively on the mother-babe bail.

In part, this may reflect a cultural bias. Many people who study attachment come from industrialized societies where mothers usually bear most of the responsibility for childcare.

Merely in some families, fathers spend a bang-up deal of time with their children.

And in many parts of the world, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and siblings make substantial–even crucial–contributions to childcare.

In fact, among some modernistic-day foragers, similar the Aka and Efe of central Africa, infants spend the much of the day being held by someone other than their mothers (Hewlett 1991; Konner 2005).

Such evidence has inspired evolutionary anthropologists to "rethink…assumptions about the exclusivity of the mother-infant relationship" (Hrdy 2005).

For instance, anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has argued that non-maternal caregivers may take played an important part in human evolution (Hrdy 2005). When infants have multiple caregivers, their mothers bear less of the price of child-rearing. Mothers can beget to have more children, and their children tin can afford to grow upwardly more slowly.

Interestingly, these life-history traits—college fertility and an extended babyhood—distinguish humans from our closest living relatives, the slap-up apes (Smuts et al 1989). And ape mothers—unlike many homo mothers—must raise their kids without helpers.

So perhaps "allocare" (non-maternal childcare) gave our ancestors the edge—allowing us to reproduce at faster rates than our nonhuman cousins.

If then, it'south foolish to assume that homo babies are designed for sectional attachments to a single, maternal caregiver.

While this point doesn't detract from the importance of Strange State of affairs studies, it reminds us that infants can bond with more than one person.

Research confirms that infants form secure attachment relationships with both their mothers and their fathers (Boldt et al 2017). Studies bear witness that toddlers can form secure attachments to their daycare providers (Colonnesi et al 2017). School children can class secure attachments with their teachers (Verschueren 2015).

And when they practise — when children expand their network of secure relationships — they are more likely to thrive.

More than reading

For more readings about the importance of secure, personal relationships, run into these articles

• opens in a new windowThe health benefits of sensitive, responsive parenting
• opens in a new windowThe science of attachment parenting
• opens in a new windowMind-minded parenting
• opens in a new windowStress in babies: An evidence-based guide to keeping babies calm, happy, and emotionally salubrious
• opens in a new windowPreschool stress: What causes it, and how nosotros can aid kids?
• opens in a new windowEducatee-teacher relationships: The disregarded ingredient for success

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Content last modified ane/2018

Epitome credits for "The Strange Situation":

Title image past opens in a new windowMaria Grazia Montagnari / flickr

Photo of mother and infant by Chilobiamo_P

haleexinglity.blogspot.com

Source: https://parentingscience.com/strange-situation/

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