Mary Ainsworth Childhood Attachment Analysis

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Attachment is literally defined as a strong ongoing bond between two people; it can also be defined as a warm, continuous, loving feeling among two people.
According to a psychologist, Mary Ainsworth, “attachment is a relatively long enduring tie in which the partner is important as a unique and is interchangeable with no other”.

The attachment theory originated in the work of John Bowlby in 1958, the experience of Bowlby working as a psychiatrist in a child guidance clinic in London where he treated emotionally disturbed children led to the consideration of the importance of the child’s relationship with their mothers in terms of emotional, social and cognitive development. He also defined attachment as a life span phenomenon.

Importantly, psychologists advanced two theories in producing attachments which are the behaviorist/learning theory of attachment by psychologists like Dollard and Miller …show more content…

Type A children are referred to as the insecure avoidant, Type B children are referred to as the secure attachment and Type C children are referred to as insecure ambivalent. In summarization, the study was about one year olds in strange situations to assess the nature of a child’s relationship with its mother and the study was a standardized observational technique and Ainsworth wanted to find out how the children will react to the mother’s return after she is out of a laboratory playroom for a three minute period.
In result of the study was that, the type B child seeks for immediate contact with her when she returns, the type A child is the anxious-avoidant and so ignores or avoids the mother on her return and the type C child is the anxious-resistance and so seeks contact with her when she returns but simultaneously shows anger and resists contact; the child cries a lot more than others and is really distressed when the mother

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