ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by secure attachments the

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alternate brand of superglue it's just not the very catchy name guys all right [Baby with a bottle of milk attached to glue]

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here's today's question.. What did Mary Ainsworth conclude from her studies on

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human infants and here are potential answers...

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well so apparently babies form attachment to their mothers super weird [Mother holding baby]

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it's almost like they were physically connected to them for nine months or

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something Wow okay so Mary Ainsworth knew what was up but she was more

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interested in what types of attachments babies formed like maybe your baby uses [woman with arms taped and horses look on]

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velcro while others preferred duct tape it's hard to say so our friend Mary

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divides an assessment technique called the strange situation classification

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through the strange situation procedure in order to investigate the varying [person using magnifying glass on a computer monitor]

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forms of attachment among young children she conducted the procedure by observing

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the behavior of infants in a series of eight episodes lasting three minutes [infants faces on a computer screen]

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each Ainsworth would make note of behaviors exhibited by the infant

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including contact seeking, contact maintaining, avoidance of contact and

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resistance to contact all leading her to identify three main attachment styles

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insecure avoidant, secure and insecure ambivalent wow that Mary sure is [3 main types of attachment]

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organized we wonder if we can get her to help out with our closet anyway did she

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conclude that C) babies with avoidant attachment liked being held by parents [A messy closet]

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well Ainsworth used the term insecure avoidant to describe children who are

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independent both emotionally and physically from their attachment figure

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and who explore their environment without concern for where their guardian [Baby wearing a coat and hat walking]

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is there the babies who grow up to be Indiana Jones you know they do their own

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thing which means they don't necessarily love being held by their parents and [Mother holding a baby]

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they don't feel the need to go running back to mom all the time so that

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eliminates C) and D) did Ainsworth conclude that E) babies with ambivalent

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attachments never cried... insecure ambivalent is an attachment style where [baby crying on the floor]

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the children seem clingy and dependant but simultaneously reject their [baby throws block at mothers head]

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attachment figure when they try to interact with them they don't develop

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security and struggle to be comforted effectively this is mostly due to

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inconsistencies on behalf of the caregiver all that insecurity sounds

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pretty sad right almost like it might make you cry and so that puts a damper [Man crying]

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on E) so Ainsworth conclusion must have been about babies with secure

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attachments secure attachment babies feel confident that their attachment

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figure is available to meet their needs their figure is a safe base from which [Mother pushing boulder away from baby]

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to explore and also a safe place to seek reassurance at times of stress so would

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they be reject their mothers now that would make any sense which means that

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Ainsworth concluded that A) babies with secure attachments explored freely while

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their mother was present which is pretty logical right if you know the nest will

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be there when you need it you might go ahead and check out what else is up in [Bird flying]

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the tree so A) is the correct answer fortunately Ainsworth found secure

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attachment to be the most common style weird we were really betting on that [Woman carrying baby taped to her back]

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duct tape thing...

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