Why does the Strange Situation lack validity?

Criticisms of the Strange Situation Test Some argue that the use of only mothers in the study takes away from the validity of its application to general attachment styles. Children who have a father, grandparent, or other types of caregivers may show differences in their behaviors and attachment styles.

Why does the Strange Situation lack ecological validity?

Furthermore, another criticism of the strange situation is that it lacks ecological validity. Ainsworth conducted her observation in a controlled environment, and therefore the children may have acted differently to how they would act in a more familiar environment.

What is a major criticism of the Strange Situation test?

A major criticism of the Strange Situation procedure is that it has focused almost exclusively on the mother-infant bond. In part, this may reflect a cultural bias. Many people who study attachment come from industrialized societies where mothers usually bear most of the responsibility for infant care.

What is the validity of Ainsworth Strange Situation?

The Ainsworth strange situation evaluation suggests the research is highly reliable and has high temporal validity. However, there are some issues when making broad inferences, as the study is ethnocentric.

How reliable is the Strange Situation?

reliability. The strange situation classification has been found to have good reliability. This means that it achieves consistent results. For example, a study conducted in Germany found that 78% of the children were classified in the same way at ages 1 and 6 years (Wartner et al., 1994).

A-Level Psychology (AQA): The Strange Situation

What is the disadvantage of strange situation?

What are the criticisms of Ainsworth attachment theory?

Critics contend that assuming an infant must form a single bond is damaging to the relationship between infants and other potential caregivers in their life. Others take issue with the idea that unless the attachment is formed by age two, a person is doomed to have an insecure attachment style forever.

What is one limitation of the Strange Situation as a measure of attachment type?

On the other hand, a disadvantage of Ainsworth's strange situation is its low external validity. As a result of the experiment occurring in an artificial environment, the data cannot be easily applied to the outside world. The artificial environment may have caused the child distress and therefore affected the results.

How valid and reliable is the Strange Situation as a measure of infant attachment?

With respect to the ecological validity of the Strange Situation, a meta-analysis of 2,000 infant-parent dyads, including several from studies with non-Western language and/or cultural bases found the global distribution of attachment categorizations to be A (21%), B (65%), and C (14%) This global distribution was ...

How is the Strange Situation culturally biased?

The Strange Situation was created and tested in the USA, which means that it may be culturally biased ( ethnocentric ), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture. For example, the belief that attachment is related to anxiety on separation. This may not be the case in other cultures, e.g. Japan.

Is the Strange Situation ethical?

The Strange Situation Experiment (Ainsworth and Bell, 1970) was criticised on ethical grounds due to the distress caused to the children on separation from their parent, as were various cultural variations on the experiment (Takahashi, 1986) which did not take into consideration the influences of cultural differences ...

What are the strengths of the Strange Situation?

Strengths and Limitations: The Strange Situation provides a controlled and standardized way to assess attachment, fostering reliable research and comparisons. It offers valuable insights into early parent-child relationships and their potential impact on later development.

What is wrong with attachment theory?

But some of the most important features of attachment theory are getting lost in translation. Misunderstandings are leading people to believe they have a “bad” attachment type that is wreaking havoc on their relationships. Attachment theory is not a gauge of whether someone has the “wrong” or “right” attachment type.

What does lacks ecological validity mean?

ecological validity, in psychology, a measure of how test performance predicts behaviours in real-world settings. Although test designs and findings in studies characterized by low ecological validity cannot be generalized to real-life situations, those characterized by high ecological validity can be.

Why do researchers use the Strange Situation?

Her creation of the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) provided a gold standard for identifying and classifying individual differences in infant attachment security (and insecurity) and ushered in decades of research examining the precursors and outcomes of individual differences in infant ...

Is the Strange Situation a lab experiment?

The Strange Situation is a semi-structured laboratory procedure that allows us to identify, without lengthy home observation, infants who effectively use a primary caregiver as a secure base.

What was the conclusion of the strange situation experiment?

Strange Situation Experiment Conclusions

There are no inherited genes for attachment, and Mary Ainsworth's attachment theory suggested the caregiver sensitivity hypothesis which states that a child's attachment is determined by the mother's attitude and behavior towards them.

Is the Strange Situation a valid way to measure attachment in every culture?

However, separation anxiety in other societies and cultures may represent other factors. The strange situation may therefore not always be a suitable measure of attachment and may in fact be culturally specific.

Why is Ainsworth's Strange Situation ethnocentric?

Ainsworth's strange situation was criticised for only reflecting the norm/values of American culture. She suggested that 'secure' attachment was shown when the child showed distress when left alone by the mother figure. This led to the misunderstanding of other cultures child-rearing practices.

What are the two major criticisms of attachment theory?

Critics argue that this concept is too vague and lacks empirical support. Debate over Individual Differences in Attachment: The theory's explanation of individual differences in attachment styles has also been a point of contention.

Is the attachment theory valid?

Attachment theory has been significantly modified as a result of empirical research, but the concepts have become generally accepted.

What is the criticism of Bowlby's attachment theory?

Bowlby's (1969) attachment theory was heavily criticised as being “mechanistic, non-dynamic and explicated according to misunderstandings of psychoanalytic theory” (Fonagy, 2001, p. 1) by the psychoanalytic community, and for many years Bowlby was an isolated figure in psychoanalysis.

How do Bowlby and Ainsworth differ?

While Bowlby believed that attachment was an all-or-nothing process, Mary Ainsworth's research showed otherwise.

Which of the following is a criticism of the Strange Situation method developed by Ainsworth?

Which of the following is a criticism of the Strange Situation method developed by Ainsworth to measure attachment? It fails to account for important cultural features that are necessary for accurately understanding the meanings of attachment behaviors.

Why according to critics the Strange Situation might not be able to capture important differences among infants?

According to critics, the Strange Situation might not be able to capture important differences among infants because: as a measure of attachment, it may be culturally biased.