H567/03 Section B Option 1 - Ainsworth and Bell (1970) and attachment-friendly care
Ainsworth and Bell used a strange situation to observe how exploration and attachment behaviours change with novelty, separation and reunion. The prescribed 1970 article explains this balance; later attachment classifications and their commonly quoted population percentages should not be substituted for its findings.
The attachment–exploration question
The ethological-evolutionary account proposes that proximity to a caregiver supports protection during infancy, while exploration supports learning. A familiar caregiver can provide a secure base: availability permits exploration, but alarm or separation can activate contact seeking and reduce attention to the environment.
Attachment is the continuing relationship; attachment behaviour is its situational expression. A baby who explores without clinging may still be strongly attached. Conversely, increased crying or contact seeking during alarm does not provide a simple numerical measure of the relationship's strength.
Home observation offers rich evidence but may provide few comparable episodes of novelty and separation. The researchers used a short controlled laboratory sequence to illustrate interactions among exploration, responses to a stranger, separation and reunion. They also interpreted the findings alongside other human and nonhuman-primate evidence, rather than claim one short observation settled all attachment development.
Sample, observation and the room
The sample comprised 56 family-reared infants of white, middle-class parents, originally contacted through private-practice paediatricians. Twenty-three had been observed longitudinally from birth and were tested at 51 weeks; another 33 came from an independent project and were tested at 49 weeks. Mothers enacted the procedure. These are two source groups, not experimental treatment groups.
This was a controlled observation with repeated episodes for each infant. Separation, adult presence and novelty were arranged, but the fixed sequence also changed accumulated experience and distress. It is not a randomly allocated comparison of attachment histories or a test of long-term deprivation.
The furnished room had a nine-foot-square clear area divided into 16 squares for recording location and movement. Toys were at one end, with the mother's chair and the female stranger's chair forming a triangle; the infant began near its base and could move freely. Observers watched through a one-way window from an adjoining room. Mothers and the stranger were instructed in advance.
The setting was intended to encourage exploration before introducing mild, familiar forms of stress gradually. The stranger approached without abrupt alarming behaviour, and less disturbing episodes came first. This rationale improves interpretation, but the planned mildness must be weighed against actual distress and differences in infants' experiences.
Eight episodes and behavioural measures
The standard order was the same for all infants. Most specified episodes lasted three minutes, but severe distress could shorten separation episodes; episode five had an undetermined length and the final reunion ended after observation.
| Episode | People and event |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mother, infant and observer enter; observer leaves. |
| 2 | Mother and infant; she participates if the infant seeks attention. |
| 3 | Stranger enters, sits for a minute, talks to mother for a minute, then approaches with a toy; mother leaves at the end. |
| 4 | Stranger and infant; stranger plays or offers comfort as needed. |
| 5 | Mother returns and pauses for a spontaneous response; stranger leaves. After the infant settles in play, mother says goodbye and leaves again. |
| 6 | Infant alone; episode shortened if distress requires it. |
| 7 | Stranger returns and behaves as in episode four. |
| 8 | Mother returns, stranger leaves and reunion is observed. |
The first 14 cases used an earlier version of episode seven which in practice approximated the later procedure. Recording also differed: initially one observer dictated and another wrote notes; later two observers could dictate to a dual-channel recorder. Bell alone observed the separate group of 33. Transcribed narratives were consolidated and coded; this was not videotape coding of every infant.
Frequency coding gave one point for each 15-second interval containing locomotor, manipulatory or visual exploration, or crying. In a standard three-minute episode there are intervals. Frequencies were obtained for episodes two to seven, with longer or shorter episodes prorated. An interval score does not count every separate cry or measure continuous seconds of distress.
Five classes also received seven-point ratings: proximity/contact seeking, contact maintenance, avoidance, resistance and search for the absent mother. Mother-directed behaviours were rated in episodes two, three, five and eight; stranger-directed behaviours in three, four and seven; search in four, six and seven. Ratings considered strength, frequency, duration, latency and form of behaviour.
Reliability checks were specific. For eight randomly selected cases, independent frequency coders' correlations were .99 for locomotion, .93 for manipulation, .98 for visual exploration and .99 for crying. A separate four-case observation check and 14-case interactive-rating check were also reported. These support consistency for those measures and subsets, not identical observation arrangements or perfect agreement across all 56 infants.
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