Question

Discuss the different types of attachment assessed by the “Strange Situation” and whether you think attachment patterns are stable from childhood to adulthood.

Answer 1

Strange situation was am attachment experiment conducted by Mary Ainsworth.

She found four attachment patterns in the following experiment, listed below.

1. Secure

This is when a child develops a secure relationship with mother, that is, there is a healthy realtinshop wherein a child can explore freely and both the parties can freely meet each others attachment requirements without reservations. These children go on to become more curious.

2. Anxious Avoidant, Insecure.

Within this the child develops an insecure attachment styles, wherein he or she maintains enough proximity with the care gives in order to achieve its infantile sense of protection, but keeping one's at arms length as well to avoid rebuff.

Children of this kin show a sense of detachment from caregiver as form of protection from hurt.

3. Anxious/Resistant, Insecure

This is one if the least well understood categories, but insinuates that the child develops an ambivalent outlook towards the caregiver, that is, there is a sense of unpredictability with the child and the caregiver, the child tends to be extremely needy amd hyperactive amd displays signs of tantrums at absence of caregiver, which does not stop after presence either.

4. Disoriented

This is done when there is a display of sporadic behavior across time of the infant with respect to the caregiver, wherein the infant sometimes tries to maintain proximity amd at times tends to not.

Attachment patterns can be stable if there isn't a change in the form of care thst the caregiver provides to a given infant. But, across age if there is a shift in the care pattern, there can be visible shifts in ?? attachment patter too, although it is something that takes times as there is a schema that develops within a child's mind that is sometimes hard to break.