Procedures for Identifying Infants as Disorganized/Disoriented During the Ainsworth Strange Situation

This chapter is reprinted in part from: M. Greenberg, D. Cichetti, & M. Cummings, Attachment in the Preschool Years . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. This chapter describes a method for identifying particular forms of infant conflict behavior – which we have termed “disorganized and/or disoriented” behaviors – within the Ainsworth Strange Situation. We have reason to believe ( Wartner, 1987 ) that the method will work equally well to identify these behaviors in settings other than the Ainsworth Strange Situation, that is, in a mildly stressful infant–parent–stranger observation (the Clown Session designed by Main and Weston, 1981 ). Since, however, the method is likely to be applied by most investigators to observations of parent and infant made within the Strange Situation, we begin the chapter with a brief description of Ainsworth’s system. We move then to tracing the history of the development of our method. Finally, we present directions for determining that an individual infant is disorganized/disoriented.