Question

8. Describe the course of the development of attachment building. The course of the development of attachment building is the time and things that the baby gets with a person.

9. How did Mary Ainsworth measure attachment in babies?

10. Name and describe the 4 patterns of attachment described by Mary Ainsworth?

Answer 1

8. Describe the course of the development of attachment building. The course of the development of attachment building is the time and things that the baby gets with a person.

Attachment theory had been first documented by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby. It was thought that attachment is a process that is known to be developed in different phases, starting from the phase before birth starting with the attachment of the mother to the unborn baby. Within 2-7 months of birth, the baby starts to be more interactive with the caregiver with feeding and sleeping cycles. Y 6 months, the infants starts displaying joy, surprise, anger, sadnes. By 7-9 months they start vocalisation attempts and display their preference for the caregiver. Babies, becoming anxious on the caregiver going out, shows that there has become a development of attachment. Due to this interaction, the babies become attached to the caregivers.

9. How did Mary Ainsworth measure attachment in babies?

Ainsworth measured attachment in babies where the relationship between the child and the caregiver was measured. There were two attachment styles that had been observed, which were the secure style as well as the insecure style. The assessment technique by Mary Ainsworth was known as the strange situation classification in which attachments differ with children. Here, strange situations were put forward, so as to determine what was the attachment of that the child had with the infant. Here, infants had been closely observed, within the age of 12-18 months. Each situation lasted 3 minutes.

10. Name and describe the 4 patterns of attachment described by Mary Ainsworth?

The four patterns of attachment were:

• Secure (B): a child being securely attached to the caregiver will be exploring as well as playing in a free manner. The child engages with the stranger, and this child might get upset as the caregiver goes away, but on the return of the caregiver, the child becomes happy again.
• Anxious avoidant, insecure (A): this child has an insecure pattern of attachment, and he would not be showing many emotions as there would be return or departing of the caregiver. There is no distress or even excitement about the person who’s around.
• Anxious ambivalent, insecure (C): these children would be showing distress before the separation from the caregiver, along with being clingy as well as difficult to calm with the return of the caregiver.
• Disorganised/ disoriented (D): some of the children showed signs of stress, such as hunching shoulders and cocking the head in a tense manner. These occur in a child as they attempt to control crying or vanish if there is a break through of crying.