attachment-style

Attachment Styles

• Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” assessment
  1. Parent and child are alone in a room.
  2. Child explores the room without parental participation.
  3. Stranger enters the room, talks to the parent and approaches the child.
  4. Parent quietly leaves the room.
  5. Parent then returns and comforts the child.

• Resources
  • The Strange Situation - Mary Ainsworth
  • The role of attachment in infancy on later mental and physical health outcomes

Secure Attachment

• Able to separate from parent.
• Seek comfort from parents when frightened.
• Return of parents is met with positive emotions.
• Prefers parents to strangers.

Avoidant Attachment

• May avoid parents.
• Does not seek much comfort or contact from parents.
• Shows little or no preference between parent and stranger.

Ambivalent Attachment

• May be wary of strangers.
• Become greatly distressed when the parent leaves.
• Do not appear to be comforted by the return of the parent.

Disorganized Attachment

• Show a mixture of avoidant and resistant behaviors.
• May seem dazed, confused, or apprehensive.
• Eventually, the children would rather take on the caregiver roles towards their parents!