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The Strange Situation- Psychology (PORCEDURE- (stages 1-3=1- the mother…
The Strange Situation- Psychology
PORCEDURE-
stages 1-3=1- the mother and infant are introduced to the room. - 2- then the mother lets the infant explore the room. - 3- then a stranger comes in the room and tries to interact with the infant. the mother then leaves.
stages 4- 8=4- while the mother is out, the stranger spends time with the infant.5- then the stranger leaves and the mother and infant are reunited, the mother then leaves. 6- infant is completely alone. 7- stranger enters and tries to play with the infant. 8- mother and infant reunited again and stranger leaves
FINDINGS
3 ORGINAL MAIN CATEGORIES OF ATTACHMENT
TYPE A- INSECURE AVOIDANT - 22%. infants are happy to explore, have low stranger anxiety -dont treat stranger different to mother, low separation anxiety, when mother returns they ignore her, but when left completely alone they are very distressed
mothers not sensitive to the child's needs and doesnt interact with them.
TYPE B- SECURE ATTACHMENT -66%- infants happy to explore, quite high stranger anxiety, but after a while might play with stranger. they show separation anxiety, but do calm down after a while- not extreme. on reunion ep- they are very excited to see the mother and calm down very quickly after that
Mothers show high levels of sensitive responsiveness,
TYPE C- INSECURE RESISTANT - 12% - dont want to explore- keep close to mother. high levels of stranger anxiety, they have separation anxiety. on reunion ep- they seek and reject mother- child is ambivalent about reunion.
mothers not sensitive to the child's needs and doesnt interact with them.
What was the 4th category of attachment added?-
INSECURE DISORGANISED- infant shows no set way of doing things, infant does not show a clear pattern of how they respond.
sometimes the mother had either abused the child or had a mental illness.
IMPOSED CURTURAL ETIC
The strange situation is only set in America- so only relevant to America- method may not be appropriate in other cultures where they have different child rearing practices- like in Germany they encourage infants to be independent whereas in Japan- infants are rarely separated from their mothers In Israeli some infants are raised in Kibbutzim which is a community in which nurses look after the children- so not spending time with parents.
RESEARCH SHOWING CULTURAL ETIC-
PROCEDURE - Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg- meta analysis of 32 studies from 8 countries that used the strange situation procedure were used.
FINDINGS-found that the patterns of attachment types were similar to what ainsworth found Found that in samples from all cultures except from germany, Type B (secure attachmentt) was the modal attachment type. Found that Intra- cultural differences (between the same country)were greater than inter cultural (between different countries)- e.g one USA sample found 94% of Type A whilst another USA sample found only 47% Type A. overall found type a attachment more in western cultures, while type c was found more in Israel, china and japan.
EVALUATION OF VAN IJZENDOORN AND KROONENBERG- some intra- cultural differences may be due to socio- economic differences- e.g in USA samples. also can suffer from an imposed etic- where researchers analyse findings in a biased manner due to their own cultural beliefs- so impose it on to other cultures
YEO'S PRACTICAL APPLICATION- the use of the strange situation with Australian aboriginal children- aboriginal children are 9 times more likely to be placed into care than non- Yeo believes this may be due to imposed etic. aboriginal children often brought up by women who arent there natural mothers and brought up by loads of different women and are rarely left in presence of strangers- so people cant assume that they have insecure attachments and put them into care when its just the way that their culture works
EVALUATION
Strengths- although it causes distress- it is just the distress that the child will encounter in its normal everyday life. - its the standardised procedure for attachment-the method is very easy to follow- its a paradigm for attachment- its what everyone uses and can be repeated to check for reliability. - also has practical applications- some children can be taken into care if they have serious insecure attachments
Disadvantages- arguably unethical- causes the child extreme distress. - it lacks ecological validity and mundane realism as it is done in a 'strange' environment- a lab experiment. it mainly focuses on the child and the mothers- which may distort results- may not be the standardised way that the mother behaves and the father could be the main caregiver- so lacks internal validity.