Psychologists
Mary Ainsworth
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American-Canadian developmental psychologist who extended John Bowlby's attachment theory into a testable research program. After observational fieldwork on mother-infant pairs in Uganda and then in Baltimore, Ainsworth designed the Strange Situation, a standardized laboratory procedure that classified infant attachment as secure, insecure-avoidant, or insecure-resistant from how a child used its mother as a secure base across brief separations and reunions. Published in full with Blehar, Waters, and Wall as Patterns of Attachment (1978), the procedure remains the standard instrument for attachment research and shaped decades of work on early caregiving and child development.
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Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account Nationality / CultureSourced to the subject's own account Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own accountThe Strange Situation procedure and the secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant attachment classifications, operationalizing Bowlby's attachment theory. 1 Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountPatterns of Attachment (1978) 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
1. SimplyPsychology: Mary Ainsworth
Simply PsychologyMary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, biography sectionQuote, Mary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, biography section
Mary Dinsmore Salter Ainsworth (1913–1999) was the American-Canadian developmental psychologist
1. SimplyPsychology: Mary Ainsworth
Simply PsychologyMary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, findings sectionQuote, Mary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, findings section
Ainsworth and her colleagues (1978) identified three main attachment styles, secure (type B), insecure avoidant (type A), and insecure ambivalent/resistant (type C).
1. SimplyPsychology: Mary Ainsworth
Simply PsychologyMary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, procedure sectionQuote, Mary Ainsworth Strange Situation Experiment, procedure section
Over 20 minutes, the mother and a stranger entered and left the room in a set sequence.
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