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Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth (née Salter; December 1, 1913 – March 21, 1999) [1] was an American-Canadian developmental psychologist known for her work in the development of the attachment theory. She designed the strange situation procedure to observe early emotional attachment between a child and their primary caregiver .
Ainsworth's graduate students, including Mary Main and Patricia "Pat" Crittenden, made important developments to attachment science and theory. Both Main and Crittenden realized that the criteria Ainsworth was using did not allow for the attachment classification of a significant number of children. [6]
Mary Ainsworth developed a theory of a number of attachment patterns or "styles" in infants in which distinct characteristics were identified; these were secure attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious attachment and, later, disorganized attachment. In addition to care-seeking by children, peer relationships of all ages, romantic and sexual ...
The theory proposes that children attach to carers instinctively, [15] for the purpose of survival and, ultimately, genetic replication. [14] The biological aim is survival and the psychological aim is security. [11] The relationship that a child has with their attachment figure is especially important in threatening situations.
Ainsworth's student Mary Main theorised that avoidant behaviour in the Strange Situational Procedure should be regarded as 'a conditional strategy, which paradoxically permits whatever proximity is possible under conditions of maternal rejection' by de-emphasising attachment needs. [21]
Cupboard love is a popular learning theory of the 1950s and 1960s based on the research of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Mary Ainsworth. [1] Rooted in psychoanalysis, the theory speculates that attachment develops in the early stages of infancy. This process involves the mother satisfying her infant's instinctual needs, exclusively.
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed the attachment theory in the 1960s while investigating the effects of maternal separation on infant development. [4] The development of the Strange Situation task in 1965 by Ainsworth and Wittig allowed researchers to systematically investigate the attachment system operating between children and their parents. [5]
One study has shown how the home environment, specifically the types of parents a person has, can affect and shape their personality. Mary Ainsworth's strange situation experiment showcased how babies reacted to having their mother leave them alone in a room with a stranger. The different styles of attachment, labeled by Ainsworth, were Secure ...