Attachment: Bowlby, Ainsworth and the Strange Situation
Last reviewed September 2026 by Dr. Andrew Wichterman · Aligned to the current NCE blueprint. Valid for exams through June 30, 2027.
AI-narrated overview made with Google NotebookLM. The written lesson below is by Dr. Andrew Wichterman.
Attachment theory is tested as vocabulary and as classification: given a child's behavior in the Strange Situation, name the attachment style. It also underlies items about the counseling relationship itself.
Try to answer each from memory first, even if you have to guess. Guessing before reading makes the answer stick; reveal only after you have tried.
Bowlby's theory
John Bowlby drew on ethology to argue that infants are biologically predisposed to form an attachment to a caregiver, because proximity to a protector aided survival. The caregiver serves as a secure base from which the child explores and a safe haven to which the child returns when distressed. Early experiences form an internal working model, a template of self and others that shapes later relationships. Bowlby described a sequence when children are separated from caregivers: protest, despair, detachment.
Ainsworth and the Strange Situation
Mary Ainsworth created a laboratory procedure in which a 12- to 18-month-old is observed with the caregiver, a stranger, during separation, and at reunion. Three patterns emerged. Secure, about two-thirds of children: distress at separation, comfort and return to play at reunion. Insecure-avoidant: little distress at separation, avoidance of the caregiver at reunion. Insecure-ambivalent, also called resistant: intense distress, and at reunion clinging mixed with anger and difficulty being soothed. Mary Main and Judith Solomon later added disorganized: contradictory, frozen or fearful behavior, associated with frightening or abusive caregiving.
What produces each pattern
Caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness predict secure attachment. Consistently rejecting or unavailable caregiving predicts avoidance. Inconsistent caregiving, sometimes responsive and sometimes not, predicts ambivalence. Frightening or maltreating caregiving predicts disorganization. The exam asks this in reverse: which caregiving history fits the observed pattern.
Harlow, Lorenz and the evidence
Harry Harlow's rhesus monkey studies showed infants preferred a soft cloth surrogate over a wire one that provided food; attachment rests on contact comfort, not feeding. Konrad Lorenz's goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw, demonstrating critical periods. Critical period: development must happen in a fixed window. Sensitive period: development is easiest in a window but remains possible later; human attachment is treated as sensitive rather than strictly critical.
Attachment across the life span
Hazan and Shaver extended attachment to adult romantic relationships, and Bartholomew described four adult styles from combinations of positive or negative views of self and others: secure, preoccupied, dismissing and fearful. Reactive attachment disorder and disinhibited social engagement disorder are the DSM diagnoses tied to severe early neglect. Items in the helping area may ask how a client's attachment style shows up in the counseling relationship; the answer is usually that the counselor provides a consistent secure base.
Without scrolling up, write everything you remember from this lesson. Then check yourself against the key terms. Recalling the whole lesson once, right after reading it, does more than reading it twice.
Ten questions from this domain, with an explanation after each answer.
{{ doneNote }}