Mary Ainsworth was a developmental psychologist who conducted groundbreaking research on attachment theory, which seeks to explain how infants and young children form emotional bonds with their caregivers. Her research was based on the work of John Bowlby, who proposed that a child's attachment to ...
High Reliability: Not all Types Covered:
• strength is evidence of high reliability in the observations • other types of attachment may have been overlooked
• Ainsworth et al.’s study - panel of experienced observers • original research did classify as many different subtypes but
which meant that inter-observer reliability could be they all related to Types A, B and C
calculated • Main and Solomon (1990) - analysed over 200 SSP videotapes
• Researchers found almost perfect agreement when rating and proposed a fourth type called insecure-disorganised (Type
exploratory behaviour - a correlation of +.94 between D)
rater’s coming on the SSP. • A fifth type has also been identified called disinhibited
- this means that the observations can be trusted attachment - characteristic of children who have experienced
severe privation
Application to Childcare • This means that the initial research may have oversimplified a
• the processes that facilitate secure attachment can be more complex situation - lacks validity
applied to any situation where children are cared for
• In situations where disordered patterns of attachment Low Internal Validity:
develop between baby and caregiver, intervention • SSP does not measure what it aims to measure
strategies can be developed • SSP aims to measure the attachment type of a child - but it
• Cooper et al (2005) - teaches caregivers to understand actually measures the quality of one particular relationship
their babies signals of distress better and to increase • Main and Weston (1981) - found that the classification of
their understanding of what it feels like to be anxious. attachment type depended on which parent a baby was with
• The project showed a decrease in the number of • This suggests that attachment type may not be valid because
caregivers classified as disordered and an increase in what we are measuring is one relationship rather than a
babies classed as securely attached personal characteristic lodged in the individual
• it could be argued that the relationship between a child and
their primary caregiver is the key factor in determining a
child’s attachment type
• Means that outcome may be valid - if relationship being
measured is with the primary attachment figure
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