Developmental Psychology, Attachment Research
Mary Ainsworth
Johns Hopkins University; University of Virginia · 1913–1999
Key work
Patterns of Attachment (1978)
What they contributed
Ainsworth operationalized Bowlby's attachment theory through the Strange Situation — a standardized laboratory procedure measuring infants' responses to brief separations from and reunions with their caregivers. Her taxonomy of attachment patterns (secure, anxious-ambivalent, avoidant) has been replicated across cultures thousands of times and remains the primary classification system for attachment styles. She established the behavioral signatures of each pattern and their correlations with specific caregiving behaviors.
Why it matters here
Ainsworth's Strange Situation research is the empirical foundation for every article on attachment styles — providing the behavioral and physiological evidence that specific early caregiving patterns produce specific relational templates that persist into adulthood.
Articles citing this work