 30. Attachment Theory and Personality  645
seeking contact with their parent, sometimes 
turning their attention, somewhat rigidly, to 
toys on the laboratory floor.
Ainsworth’s research is important for at 
least three reasons. First, she provided an 
early empirical demonstration of the ways in 
which attachment behavior is activated and 
terminated in threatening and safe contexts. 
As such, this work was critical for establish -
ing that attachment behaviors not only re -
flect individual differences between children 
but are also natural responses to evolution -
arily significant contextual triggers. Second, 
she provided the first empirical taxonomy of 
individual differences in infant attachment 
patterns. According to her research, at least 
three types of children exist: those who are 
secure in their relationship with their par -
ents, those who are anxious–  resistant, and 
those who are anxious–  avoidant. These in -
dividual differences have become the focus 
of most empirical research conducted on 
attachment. We discuss the strengths and 
weakness of this particular taxonomy later, 
but for now we wish to highlight the fact 
that it was an important first step in study -
ing individual differences in attachment.
Finally, and most importantly, Ainsworth 
demonstrated that these individual differ -
ences were predicted by infant–  parent in -
teractions in the home during the first year 
of life (i.e., before the Strange Situation as -
sessments were made). Children classified as 
secure in the Strange Situation, for example, 
tended to have parents who were responsive 
to their needs. Children classified as inse -
cure (i.e., as anxious–  resistant or avoidant) 
often had parents who were insensitive to 
their needs, inconsistent, or rejecting and 
negligent in their care. These data provided 
early support for Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s 
hypotheses about why some children devel -
op secure relations and others develop inse -
cure relations with their caregivers.
Working Models and  Early  Development
A central assumption of attachment theory 
is that individual differences in children’s 
attachment patterns are partly a result of 
the many interactions they have had with 
their primary caregivers. Specifically, it is 
assumed that children develop mental rep -
resentations or working models  of them -selves and others on the basis of how sen -
sitive and responsive their caregivers are to 
their needs (see Bretherton & Munholland, 
2016, for a review). When children reliably 
find that their caregivers are responsive to 
their signals of distress and are able to feel 
soothed by the caregiver’s presence, they 
learn that other people can be counted on 
for support or protection. This facilitates the 
development of secure working models (i.e., 
conscious and unconscious mental represen -
tations) of attachment. In contrast, when 
children consistently find that their care -
givers are unresponsive to their needs (e.g., 
when caregivers are inattentive or downplay 
their needs and vulnerabilities), they learn 
that others cannot be counted on. As a re -
sult, such a child develops insecure work -
ing models of attachment and may begin 
to organize his or her attachment behavior 
in a way that minimizes attachment-  related 
needs or exaggerates them.
A great deal of research since Ainsworth’s 
original studies has empirically tested some 
of attachment theory’s claims about the 
origins of security and insecurity. Several 
longitudinal studies have documented as -
sociations between early maternal sensitiv -
ity and a child’s attachment classification 
in the Strange Situation. For example, K. 
Grossmann and colleagues (K. Grossmann, 
Grossmann, Spangler, Suess, & Unzer, 
1985) studied interactions between infants 
and their parents at home, and then later, 
when the infants were approximately a year 
old, brought them and their parents into the 
laboratory to participate in the Strange Situ -
ation. Children whose parents were rated as 
sensitive and responsive to their needs were 
more likely than other children to be classi -
fied as secure in the Strange Situation (see 
also Bates, Maslin, & Frankel, 1985; Isa -
bella, 1993; Kiser, Bates, Maslin, & Bayles, 
1986; see DeWolff & Van IJzendoorn, 1997, 
for a review).
The association between infant–  parent 
interactions and security has also been es -
tablished experimentally. In one particularly 
interesting study, Anisfeld, Casper, Nozyce, 
and Cunningham (1990) randomly assigned 
parents who were participating in a parent -
ing class to receive either a cozy, strap-on 
baby carrier or a plastic infant seat with a 
safety belt (which had the consequence of 