"Strange-Situation"-studies in German speaking countries: An overview

The Ainsworth Strange Situation (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969) has been widely used in attachment research to assess the quality of an infant's ties to hi s or her caregiver. An overview is presented here of 15 studies with the "S trange Situation" procedure conducted in German speaking countries, altoget her including 731 infants and their mothers. A cluster analysis grouped 13 of these studies into four clusters according to their relative distributio n of secure, avoidant, or ambivalent attachment classifications. In three o f these four clusters, comprising n = 496 infant-mother dyads, secure attac hment was the most frequent category, and in the fourth cluster, with n = 8 9 dyads, avoidant attachment was predominant. Ambivalent insecure attachmen t was even more infrequent than expected from international comparisons. Wh en disorganized insecure attachment was taken into account, up to 22% of th e infants had to be labeled as highly insecure in the majority of the studi es, a percentage also found internationally.