Key study

Ainsworth (1967): & Ainsworth et al. (1971)

The Ganda Project and The Baltimore Study.

Aims

Ainsworth wanted to study attachment behaviour among villagers belonging to the Ghanda tribe in Uganda. The study was replicated in Baltimore, USA, providing a genuine cross-cultural dimension to the research.

Procedures

Findings

Ainsworth findings from the two studies were that the same basic phases of attachment behaviour occur in both cultures, although children in Uganda showed a much more intense fear of strangers. Moreover, although the assessment methods were slightly less sophisticated in the Ganda project (the Strange Situation test was only devised in its present form for the Baltimore study) the children in both samples showed the same types of attachment styles in roughly the same proportions.

Conclusions

Evaluation

Back to development of attachments

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