Secure Attachment
Style: Children with this type of
attachment style explore their environment
but become moderately distressed when their
mom leaves.
Insecure Avoidant
Attachment Style: Children
The Strange
Situation
with this type of attachment style are not
concerned when their mother leaves the room.
Insecure/Ambivalent
Resistant Attachment
Style: Children with this type of
attachment style are clingy to their mother
in strange situations, but eventually can’t
find comfort in their mother and that makes
them angry.
Researched by Mary Ainsworth
The Strange Situation
What did she find?
In the Strange Situation
Experiment Mary Ainsworth
established her theory on the
different types of attachment
found in children.
“A child’s attachment style
What was The Strange
Experiment?
depends on their mother’s
Why is this important?
behavior towards them.”
What Mary Ainsworth researched
is so important because it allows us
to see a direct correlation to how
our childhoods affect our futures.
We begin to develop our
attachment styles at a very young
age, and Mary Ainsworth’s studies
proved that. Through these
experiments we can see that the
way we are treated by our
caregivers not only directly affects
our attachment styles but also
affects our relationships with others
as we get older.
Correlational Study: The
Safe Haven
The Safe Haven is an
“The strange situation is a
standardized procedure devised
by Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s
to observe attachment security in
children within the context of
caregiver relationships. It applies
to infants between the age of nine
and 18 months.”
observational study conducted
by Nancy Collins and Collins
Feeney in 2000. This study was
done to see the direct correlation
that attachment styles have on
intimate relationships within
adulthood.