Journal # 7: Mary Ainsworth

Mary Ainsworth's study is broken down into 4 sections, which are dispalyed in her "The Strange Situation" expieriment. There are 4 different circumstances within the video provided to the right of Ainsworth's expieriment. In the first example shown a toddler or baby is in a staged room with his or her mother. They are playing and going about normal behavior, then the mother is cued to leave the room without her child. In th case that that child and the mother have a secure relationship, the child would cry upon their mothers dissaperence, and rejoice once their mother returned and clam and and engage in normal play once again. However, if the parent and child had an ambivalent relationship. That means that the child wants to be clingy and desperatly attached to their mother, however the parent does not care. Thus, causing and inscure resistant. The 3rd category is the avoidant relationship. Here the child is very independent. They do not look towards their mother for care because when they have looked for it, it was not found in that figure. Thus causing them to be untrustworthy of them. And lastly, there is the dissorganized stage, which is where the child is unsure of what they want to do with the figure present.

Her study deeply demonstrates why we have the relationships we have with our mothers today! Such as if we grew up being raised by a care giver or nanny. Who's to say we had very much trust in them, however, in most cases they do not. Leading up to an avoidant relationship. Today i feel like it is not only the parents that shut of their children with work or other things causing bad relationships. But I feel as if Ainsworth would see that it is also the childrens' fault for shutting out their parents by staying locked up. whether emotionally or physically. If we as children lock oursleves up in our room all day we will for sure begin to grow a strong avoidant relationship with our mothers because we begin to grow further and further away from them. And if that relationship is not changed we will continue to have no attachment changes throughout our life time.