Mary Ainsworth: Attachment and the Growth of Love

Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation” is now basic to understandings of infant-parent interactions and, thus, later emotional development. Working in close collaboration with the British psychiatrist John Bowlby, Ainsworth gave us new understandings of the huge impact very early emotional experiences have on personality development across the life span. 

The production details the developmental course of attachment behaviors and the different patterns that are captured by the controlled observational techniques of the “Strange Situation.” Using archival (including the Harlow primate studies) and new film sequences, the video also gives students a sense of how psychological research is conducted and used in therapeutic situations.

Includes:

video