What is the weakness of the Strange Situation?

Weaknesses: Validity: The strange situation study seems to imply that attachment types influence personality and therefore affect later attachments. However, the strange situation may actually be testing the relationship between the infant and the caregiver.

What is the weakness of the strange situation experiment?

Ainsworth's Strange Situation: Weaknesses

A weakness of this study is that its results may be culture-bound. Its findings are only applicable to the culture in which it was conducted, so they are not truly generalisable.

What are the criticisms of the strange situation?

Mary Ainsworth concluded that the strange situation could be used to identify the child's type of attachment but has been criticized because it identifies only the type of attachment to the mother. The child may have a different type of attachment to the father or grandmother, for example (Lamb, 1977).

What is an important criticism of the strange situation method?

A major criticism of the Strange Situation procedure is that it has focused almost exclusively on the mother-infant bond. 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 infant care.

Why does the strange situation lack validity?

The strange situation lacks validity-Kagan et al(1986) suggested that attachment type is more related to temperament than to the relationship with the primary attachment figure.In this case the strange situation can be seen to be measuring anxiety rather than attachment.

The Strange Situation | Mary Ainsworth, 1969 | Developmental Psychology

What are the criticisms of Ainsworth attachment theory?

Critics contend that assuming an infant must form a single bond is damaging to the relationship between infants and other potential caregivers in their life. Others take issue with the idea that unless the attachment is formed by age two, a person is doomed to have an insecure attachment style forever.

What is one limitation of using the Strange Situation to investigate attachment?

On the other hand, a disadvantage of Ainsworth's strange situation is its low external validity. As a result of the experiment occurring in an artificial environment, the data cannot be easily applied to the outside world. The artificial environment may have caused the child distress and therefore affected the results.

What are the strengths of the Strange Situation?

Strengths and Limitations: The Strange Situation provides a controlled and standardized way to assess attachment, fostering reliable research and comparisons. It offers valuable insights into early parent-child relationships and their potential impact on later development.

How is the Strange Situation culturally biased?

The Strange Situation was created and tested in the USA, which means that it may be culturally biased ( ethnocentric ), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture. For example, the belief that attachment is related to anxiety on separation. This may not be the case in other cultures, e.g. Japan.

Is the Strange Situation ethical?

The Strange Situation Experiment (Ainsworth and Bell, 1970) was criticised on ethical grounds due to the distress caused to the children on separation from their parent, as were various cultural variations on the experiment (Takahashi, 1986) which did not take into consideration the influences of cultural differences ...

What was the point of the Strange Situation?

The Strange Situation is designed to tell us something about the quality of the relationship. Specifically, is the infant able to use the person it is attached to as a secure base from which to explore and as a haven of safety and comfort?

What is the conclusion of the Strange Situation?

The results highlight the role of the mother's behaviour in determining the quality of attachment. This led to the conceptualisation of the Caregiver Sensitivity Hypothesis, which suggests that a mother's behaviour towards their infant predicts their attachment type.

What is disorganized in the strange situation experiment?

In the strange situation experiment, disorganized infants are marked by confusing and contradictory behaviors such as calling a caregiver while backing away, or freezing when a caregiver enters the room.

What are the 4 attachment styles in the Strange Situation?

The recognized method to assess infant-parent attachment, the Strange Situation procedure, is described. In addition, a description is provided for the four major types of infant-parent attachment, ie, secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant and insecure-disorganized.

What is disorganized attachment in the Strange Situation?

Disorganized/Disoriented attachment is characterized in Ainsworth's “strange situation” task as a child who exhibits behavioral disorganization or disorientation in the form of wandering, confused expressions, freezing, undirected movements, or contradictory (i.e. “unorganized”) patterns of interaction with a caregiver ...

Is The strange situation ethnocentric?

Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation Research can be seen to be ethnocentric due to the fact that the research procedure was developed in the United States and is based on the US views of what is seen as important' in caregiver-infant attachment (is based purely on US values).

What are the 3 Behaviours measured in the Strange Situation?

The purpose of the Strange Situation is to measure four key behaviours, including: exploration behaviours – how the child explores the environment and whether they use the mother as a safe base; separation anxiety – how the child responds to/behaves when the mother leaves the room; stranger anxiety – how the child ...

What are the weaknesses of attachment theory?

A serious limitation of attachment theory is its failure to recognize the profound influences of social class, gender, ethnicity, and culture on personality development. These factors, independent of a mother's sensitivity, can be as significant as the quality of the early attachment.

What is one limitation of the strange situation apart from ethical issues?

One limitation of the strange situation is the occurrence of demand characteristics. The mothers are aware that they are being observed by psychologists. The mothers' behaviour may change as a result of trying to guess what the psychologist is looking at/observing.

What is the strange situation technique?

In this procedure of the Strange Situation, the child is observed playing for 21 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives. The situation varies in stressfulness and the child's responses are observed.

What are the pros and cons of attachment theory?

The advantages include the close bond that can be formed through breastfeeding as well as a study that showed improved language skills. Some cons of attachment parenting not only include the risk of SIDS, but also the stress it can put on parents.

How do Bowlby and Ainsworth differ?

While Bowlby believed that attachment was an all-or-nothing process, Mary Ainsworth's research showed otherwise.

What are the negative effects of attachment?

Children with avoidant attachments can be overly self-reliant and maintain emotional distance from a rejecting caregiver; children with ambivalent (or preoccupied) attachments are chronically unsure of the caregiver's availability, which can lead them to be vigilant about remaining in close contact with caregivers; and ...

Why is Ainsworth's Strange Situation ethnocentric?

Ethnocentrism/Imposed etic: The strange situation was designed by an American, using American children for use on other Americans. Many researchers have therefore questioned whether it can possibly be suitable for testing the children of other cultures.

Is the Strange Situation a controlled observation?

Ainsworth's Strange Situation is a technique involving a controlled observation that is used to test a child's attachment patterns. It involves assessing the behaviour of an infant aged 12-18 months in a controlled setting through a two-way mirror.