Human Growth and Development / Unit 4 HGD 0490 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Four Patterns of Attachment
The idea
The Strange Situation sorts infants into four patterns. Secure infants explore from the caregiver as a base, protest separation and are soothed at reunion. Avoidant infants show little distress and ignore the caregiver's return. Ambivalent, or resistant, infants cling, are highly distressed and resist comfort. Disorganized infants show contradictory, confused behaviour. US estimates put about sixty-five percent secure, twenty percent avoidant, ten to fifteen percent ambivalent and five to ten percent disorganized.
In practice
Four toddlers at the same reunion: one hugging and returning to play, one ignoring, one clinging angrily, one freezing.
Where people slip
Estimates depend on the sample. A twenty twenty-three meta-analysis of more than two hundred eighty-five studies in over twenty nations found about fifty-two percent secure, fifteen avoidant, ten resistant, and nearly a quarter disorganized. Secure attachment is still the most common pattern in every culture studied. On the exam, the reunion behaviour is the clue to the pattern.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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