Individual Differences in Attachment

Attachment is when you get a strong mutual, emotional bond in between 2 people like with a mother and infant. The attachment functions as a basis for further emotional and mental advancement. Following on from the study carried out by Schaffer and Emerson (1964) on the stages of advancement in accessory, Ainsworth and Bell (1978) investigated private differences in accessory utilizing the Unusual Situation. They hoped that their technique of evaluating attachments would be a trustworthy and legitimate procedure of accessories. The Strange Scenario test lasted around 20 minutes and included the observation of an American baby (12 to 18 months) in a controlled observation space.

The treatment consisted of 7 stressful episodes each enduring 3 minutes, depending upon the response of the infant.

The first episode involved the baby checking out the space in the presence of the caregiver. A complete stranger then went into the space, followed by the discreet departure of the caregiver. The caregiver would then return, and the response of the kid would be tape-recorded.

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The complete stranger would then leave the space. There was 3 clear groups of babies from the tape-recorded outcomes that were collected. One group greeted the mom on her return, this reveals that the child was securely attached. Another group revealed distress all around the room and turned down the mom on return, this is called an insecure resistant child. The final kind of kid found from the outcomes was a child that didn't orientate the space in which they were in, and they didn't reveal any interest in their mothers return.

This is called an insecure avoidant child.

Takahashi did another research study to learn about accessories in between Japanese kids and their caretaker. He used 60 middle class Japanese infants all aged 1. They were all raised at home, and were observed in a strange situation. 68% of the results showed that the child was safely attached. The staying 32% were all resistance insecurely connected. However these outcomes might not be very accurate. This is due to the fact that all of the results originate from kids from the same background, so it can not really be utilized to generalize the entire of Japan. This means that it had low population validity and cultural bias.

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg did a similar study to the one by Takahashi but they took results from eight different countries. The results showed important and clear cultural differences. Europe contained the most countries that had securely attached relationships and the least amount of resistant’s. This shows that the study done by Takahashi was not reliable at all, because it only looked at one culture and one type of child from one background. This shows massive cultural differences and population validity, which means it cannot be generalized for everybody else. The three studies all had different results, mostly showing that the majority of the infants involved were securely attached.