Psychology Classic Studies: The Strange Situation — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:01attachment is the basis for human
3. 0:03relationships in all
4. 0:05societies it refers to strong emotional
5. 0:07ties that exist between people and is
6. 0:10now a central Concept in developmental
7. 0:13psychology when developmental
8. 0:15psychologists talk about attachment rely
9. 0:17they mean the relationship between a
10. 0:19young child or infant and the caregiver
11. 0:22so primarily the
12. 0:24parent in attachment Theory infants
13. 0:27actively seek out loving relationships
14. 0:30and whether or not they find them can
15. 0:32shape the rest of their
16. 0:34lives so if I feel secure and confident
17. 0:37that I'm loved and cared for that
18. 0:38someone will be there to take care of me
19. 0:39in times of need then I can step out in
20. 0:41the world with an inner strength that
21. 0:44the child without that security cannot
22. 0:47John Balby the founder of attachment
23. 0:49Theory claimed that secure attachment
24. 0:51was vital for good psychological
25. 0:53development but it was his colleague
26. 0:55Canadian psychologist Mary anworth who
27. 0:58gave bal's Theory as a grounding in
28. 1:00Empirical research so what Mary answorth
29. 1:03did was to devise a laboratory method
30. 1:05for documenting individual differences
31. 1:06in attachment and this was called The
32. 1:09Strange
33. 1:12[Music]
34. 1:16situation the strange situation assesses
35. 1:19how typically one-year-old infants
36. 1:21respond to separation from the mother
37. 1:23and then what they do when she comes
38. 1:25back in So how they respond on reunion
39. 1:27with
40. 1:28her the strange situation consists of
41. 1:31eight episodes all of which are
42. 1:33discreetly observed and filmed by the
43. 1:36psychologists mother and infant are
44. 1:38introduced to the room then the mother
45. 1:41watches as the infant explores and gets
46. 1:43used to the
47. 1:45room a female stranger comes in and
48. 1:48talks to the
49. 1:51parent and then starts playing with the
50. 1:54infant while the mother quietly leaves
51. 2:03yeah come on brush the J's
52. 2:07Hair the infant is left alone with a
53. 2:09stranger who tries to interact with
54. 2:18her then the mother
55. 2:23returns Comforts the
56. 2:26infant and the stranger leaves
57. 2:31teddy
58. 2:33bears listen to the music sit down then
59. 2:37the mother goes again leaving the infant
60. 2:39alone in the
61. 2:42[Music]
62. 2:49room what we're basically doing here is
63. 2:51progressively increasing the level of
64. 2:53stress that the baby's exposed to first
65. 2:55it's a strange place then it's a strange
66. 2:57person on top of that then it's a
67. 2:59separation froming on top of
68. 3:05that the stranger returns and again
69. 3:08tries to comfort and interact with the
70. 3:13infant dear my hair
71. 3:17again
72. 3:21yay oh look oh the ring who won't be
73. 3:25long now
74. 3:41finally the mother returns and the
75. 3:43stranger
76. 3:45leaves what the psychologists have been
77. 3:47looking for here is the baby's reaction
78. 3:49to the separation and more important
79. 3:52their behavior on reunion with the
80. 3:53mother when we look at behavior of
81. 3:55children in the strange situation we see
82. 3:57that they behave differently Mary
83. 4:00answorth and her colleagues identified
84. 4:01three types of attachment the first they
85. 4:04call secure
86. 4:06attachment some children who were very
87. 4:09upset by the separations and comings and
88. 4:11goings of the stranger and the mother
89. 4:13when mother comes back Scamper over to
90. 4:16her say pick me up sink into her and
91. 4:19relax and settle down that's a signature
92. 4:22of a securely attached child and
93. 4:25eventually even though it might be a few
94. 4:27minutes later the child will then go
95. 4:29back to play so they kind of have their
96. 4:31balance reset by contact with the
97. 4:34mother ainsworth's second type is
98. 4:37insecure
99. 4:39avoidant insecure avoidant children um
100. 4:42don't really respond very differently
101. 4:44either to separation or reunion so
102. 4:46throughout the whole of the strange
103. 4:48situation they're they're pretty much at
104. 4:50a baseline kind of behavior so the
105. 4:52mother leaves them and they don't seem
106. 4:54particularly distressed or or um anxious
107. 4:56about this separation
108. 5:06and when the mother comes back in they
109. 5:08don't want or seek
110. 5:10contact
111. 5:14hello is
112. 5:17it in extreme cases if the mother um
113. 5:20initiates or tries to initiate contact
114. 5:22with the child they might avert gaze or
115. 5:24turn away from the mother do
116. 5:32yeah have you been do it you
117. 5:37playing the third type is insecure
118. 5:41resistant they don't explore the
119. 5:43environment and on separation they get
120. 5:45very very distressed when the baby's
121. 5:47distressed what you might have is a baby
122. 5:49who simply can't bring himself together
123. 5:51to approach the caregiver the mother and
124. 5:53just sits there and cries or can
125. 5:56approach the caregiver says pick me up
126. 5:58but can't find comfort in saw us there
127. 6:01answorth found that about 2third of the
128. 6:03children in her samples were securely
129. 6:06attached but since her original
130. 6:08formulation researchers have identified
131. 6:10a fourth type insecure
132. 6:13disorganized unlike the organized
133. 6:16patterns of attachment these infants
134. 6:18appear to have no clear strategy for how
135. 6:20to deal with separation and reunion and
136. 6:22this kind of attachment has been found
137. 6:23to be more common in um cases where the
138. 6:27infant might have been abused or where
139. 6:29the mother s might have had various
140. 6:30mental ill health problems but we also
141. 6:33get around 15% of infants in normal
142. 6:36middleclass samples being classified as
143. 6:39disorganized psychologists are
144. 6:41interested in what produces these
145. 6:43different patterns of attachment anworth
146. 6:46suggested that they resulted from
147. 6:47different types of
148. 6:49parenting mothers of securely attached
149. 6:51children tended to be more responsive to
150. 6:53them holding them for longer and
151. 6:56generally taking more pleasure in being
152. 6:57with them
153. 6:59tell psychologists have also done
154. 7:01longitudinal studies to explore how
155. 7:03different patterns of attachment in
156. 7:05infancy affect Early Childhood later
157. 7:09childhood and
158. 7:11adulthood and Mary ainsworth's methods
159. 7:13have underpinned a lot of This research
160. 7:16the strange situation has been
161. 7:17criticized for being specific to Western
162. 7:20cultures and classification into types
163. 7:22is to some extent dependent on the
164. 7:24subjective Judgment of the
165. 7:26researchers however its findings have
166. 7:28been replicated ated in countless later
167. 7:30studies and it's testimony to Mary
168. 7:32ainsworth's great achievement that the
169. 7:34strange situation continues to be one of
170. 7:37the most important research Tools in
171. 7:39developmental psychology
172. 7:46[Music]
173. 7:57[Music]