review paper the insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment...

Review Paper

The Insecure/Ambivalent Pattern ofAttachment: Theory and Research

Jude Gassidy and Lisa J. BerlinThe Pennsylvania State University

CASSIDY, JUDE, and BERLIN, LISA J. The Insecure/Ambivalent Pattem of Attachment: Theory andResearch. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1994, 65, 971-991. Relatively little has been written about onegroup of infants identified with Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" assessment of infant-parentattachment, those classified insecure/ambivalent. Although virtually all samples contain someinsecure/ambivalent infants, these infants are uncommon, comprising 7%-15% of most Americansamples. Recently developed assessments of attachment in children and adults have identifiedattachment groups of older individuals thought to parallel the insecure/ambivalent infant group.Empirical work in which insecure/ambivalent individuals are examined as a separate group isreviewed within the context of attachment theory, and a coherent picture emerges ofthe anteced-ents (relatively low or inconsistent matemal availability; biological vulnerability) and sequelae(limited exploratory competence) of this group. This picture is used as the basis for additionaltheoretical proposals, and suggestions for future research are presented.

Research conducted across the past two are also referred to "insecure/resistant"),decades has offered compelling support for and clinging, dependent, contact-maintain-the use of the "Strange Situation" to assess ing behavior. Infants classified insecure/infant attachment. In this procedure, the 12— ambivalent are characterized by their preoc-18-month-old infant remains in a laboratory cupation with, as well as their ambivalenceplayrooim while the parent and a female toward, their parent (Ainsworth et al., 1978;"stranger" alternately leave and return Braungart & Stifter, 1991; Shiller, Izard, &(Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Hembree, 1986).Substantial data suggest that the three prin- ^^^^ insecure/ambivalent group is thecipal attachment patterns that emerge from j ^ ^ ^ ^ understood of the three attachmentthis procedure both reflect early caregivmg j ^ j ^ because so few infantshistory and predict various important as- ^^^ classified in this group. Approximatelypects of social development (for reviews, see 7%. 15% ^f j^fants in nonpathological sam-m i i ^ f j ^ ' ' " P'^ ' '- Bretherton, j ^ ^ -^ ^ ^^.^^^ g ^ ^ ^^^ classified inse-1985; for a divergent view, see Lamb, cure/ambivalent (Ainsworth et al., 1978;Thompson, Gardner, & Charnov, 1985). Campos, Barrett, Lamb, Goldsmith, &

The behavior of one group of infants, Stenberg, 1983; see also van IJzendoorn &those classified insecure/ambivalent (group Kroonenberg, 1988, for evidence of gener-C), is, on the surface, particularly puzzling, ally similar cross-national distributions). Be-Aithough the parent's departure causes the cause ofthe small numbers, insecure/ambiv-infant extreme distress, the parent's return is alent babies are often combined with othernot soothing. Instead, during reunion, these insecure babies (i.e., those in the insecure/babies vacillate abruptly between angry, avoidant group), and comparisons are madefrustrated resistance to contact (these infants within the secure versus insecure dichot-

Preparation of this article was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grantMH46572-02, and by a Research Initiation grant from The Pennsylvania State University, bothto the first author. The authors are grateful to Mary D. Ainsworth, Jay Belsky, Thomas D. Borko-vec, Roger Kobak, Lynn S. Liben, Mary Main, Robert S. Marvin, and three anonymous reviewers,all of whom provided helpful comments on earlier versions ofthe manuscript. Address correspon-dence to Jude Cassidy, Department of Psychology, 514 Moore Building, The Pennsylvania StateUniversity, University Park, PA 16802.

[Child Development, 1994, 65,971-991. ® 1994 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.All rights reserved. 0009-3920/94/6504-0016$01.00]

972 Ghild Development

omy. Even when the two insecure groupsare examined separately, small sample sizesand limited statistical power hinder re-searchers' ability to illuminate the distinc-tive correlates (antecedents, sequelae) ofthis particular attachment pattern. Thus, inorder to understand the insecure/ambivalentpattern, examination of a range of studies iscritical.

In this article, we aim to review and in-tegrate information about the insecure/am-bivalent attachment pattern. Some factorsassociated with the insecure/ambivalent pat-tern are thought to be a function of insecu-rity (as opposed to security), and other fac-tors are thought to be a function of aparticular type of insecurity (i.e., insecure/ambivalent vs. insecure/avoidant) (Ains-worth et al., 1978). Civen our goal of describ-ing all that is known about the insecure/am-bivalent pattern, findings that identify eitherof these factors are important, and thus arereported here.

We begin by describing briefiy thepropositions of attachment theory regardingboth precursors and sequelae of the inse-cure/ambivalent attachment pattern (Ains-worth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1969, 1973).Next, we review the empirical studies of in-fant attachment in which the insecure/am-bivalent group is examined separately. Wefollow a convention of presenting all com-parisons involving the insecure/ambivalentgroup that were reported in the original pub-lication. We then examine studies exploringattachment beyond infancy. Subsequently,we present a theoretical discussion of theways in which patterns of mother and childbehaviors associated with the insecure/am-bivalent pattern may work together, contrib-uting to an incompetent, overdependentchild whose attachment behavioral systemis frequently activated. Finally, we discussfuture research that would address thesepropositions.

Attachment Theory: Implicationsof Uncertainty abont MaternalAvailability

According to attachment theory, re-peated daily experiences with the caregivercontribute to the infant's developing an in-ternal representation (a "working model") ofthe caregiver (Bowlby, 1969). It is thoughtthat the Strange Situation behavior of inse-cure/ambivalent infants refiects a workingmodel of the caregiver as inconsistentlyavailable, where even on reunion these in-

fants continue to act as if she were unavail-able (Ainsworth, 1984). This uncertaintyabout maternal availability is thought to re-sult neither from consistent maternal avail-ability nor consistent maternal unavailabil-ity, but rather from inconsistent maternalavailability (Ainsworth, 1984).

A working model of "uncertain maternalavailability" differs importantly from theworking models of other infants. Secure in-fants are thought to develop working modelsof the "certain maternal availability" be-cause of their repeated experiences of sensi-tive responsiveness. Insecure/avoidant in-fants, because of their daily experiences, arethought to develop working models of theirmothers as consistently rejecting.

Bowlby (1969, 1973) predicted severalconsequences of infant uncertainty aboutmaternal availability. First, because the in-fant does not trust the mother's availabilityand thus remains close to her in order to en-sure access, heightened attachment behav-ior is expected. Second, because the infantdoes not trust the mother to leave his sight,an increase in infant monitoring of themother is predicted. Third, given that atten-tion to the mother constrains attention to theenvironment, a decrease in exploratory com-petence is expected.

In sum, attachment theory proposes thatheightened attachment behavior and in-creased fearfulness characteristic of theStrange Situation behavior of insecure/am-bivalent infants ought to (a) result from ex-periences contributing to uncertainty aboutmaternal availability, and (b) lead to incom-petent exploration. In the following section,infant attachment research that addressesthese and related issues is reviewed.

Infancy Research

Precursors of Insecure/Ambivalent Attachment

MATERNAL BEHAVIOR

In the first part of this section, we re-view literature related to maternal availabil-ity, and in the second part, we examine stud-ies of maternal behavior in response toinfant exploration.

Maternal AvailabilityThe theoretically based proposition that

inconsistent maternal availability is associ-ated with insecure/ambivalent attachmenthas not been tested directly. The only re-search examining maternal behavior has fo-

Gassidy and Berlin 973

cused on mean levels of behavior. Thus,mothers who are sometimes available andsometimes unavailable will appear, on aver-age, less available than those who are consis-tently available. Given the nature of existingresearch, associations between relativelylow matemal availability and the insecure/ambivalent pattern are expected. It is impor-tant to underscore that it is low availabilityrelative to that of other mothers that is con-sidered, rather than inherently low (ornearly nonexistent) availability. Accordingto learning theory, an unpredictable (i.e., in-termittent) reinforcement schedule main-tains consistent responding; a predictablylow schedule could lead to extinction of at-tachment behavior.

Ainsworth's Baltimore study.—In thefirst study to examine the relation betweenmaternal behavior in the home and securityof attachment, Ainsworth and her colleaguesreported a link between relatively low ma-ternal availability and insecure/ambivalentattachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Ains-worth made extensive narrative records ofnaturalistic home observations of white,middle-class dyads every 3 weeks during theinfants' first year, and assessed attachmentat 12 months. During the fourth quarter ofthe infants' first year, mothers of insecure/ambivalent babies scored significantly lowerthan mothers of secure babies in 7 of 11 ar-eas (affection when picking up the baby,skill in handling the infant, responsivenessto infant crying, sensitivity to infant signals,accessibility, cooperation, and acceptance).In sum, although in Ainsworth's study onlyfour infants were classified in secure/ambiv-alent, the mothers of these babies emergedas less available and less sensitive to theirinfants than mothers of secure babies. How-ever, unlike mothers of avoidant infants,these mothers showed no aversion to closebodily contact, "affording some comfortingexperience when in close bodily contact, al-beit inconsistently" (Ainsworth, 1984, p.582). We now examine several sets of studiesthat followed Ainsworth's pioneering inves-tigation.

Home observation studies: Middle-income families.—A characterization ofmothers of insecure/ambivalent babies asthe least involved with and responsive totheir babies in the first year also emergedfrom three cohorts of Belsky's PennsylvaniaChild and Family Development Project inwhich mother-infant dyads were visited at 1,3, and 9 months. Families were white andpredominantly middle class. In the first co-

hort, linear trend analyses revealed that in-secure/ambivalent babies experienced theleast amount of reciprocal interaction andinvolvement with their mothers at 1, 3, and9 months, although this difference achievedstatistical significance at 9 months only (Bel-sky, Rovine, & Taylor, 1984). Furthermore,mothers of insecure/ambivalent babies,compared to mothers of secure babies, weresignificantly less responsive to their infants'distress at 3 and 9 months and to their in-fants' vocalizations at 9 months. Data from asecond cohort of this project revealed thatdyads containing insecure/ambivalent in-fants were characterized by "relatively few"(p. 18) mutual and reciprocal exchanges,with mothers tending to be unresponsive totheir infants' vocalizations at 3 and 9 months(Isabella, Belsky, & von Eye, 1989). In athird cohort, also examined at 3 and 9months, mothers of insecure/ambivalent in-fants were again characterized as relativelyless involved with their infants than mothersof avoidant infants at both ages—a character-ization that refiected, in part, a dispropor-tionately frequent number of occasions onwhich these babies vocalized and the moth-ers did not respond (Isabella & Belsky,1991).

Data from two additional longitudinalhome observation studies of white middle-class American dyads also reported an asso-ciation between relatively low levels of ma-ternal availability over the first year and theinsecure/ambivalent attachment pattern.One investigation found that, compared toboth other groups of mothers, those of inse-cure/ambivalent babies initiated the fewestnumber of interactions with their infants atage 6 months (Kiser, Bates, Maslin, &Bayles, 1986). In another study, mothers ofinsecure/ambivalent babies showed signifi-cantly less responsiveness at 3 months thanmothers of both secure and avoidant infants,and significantly less initiation than mothersof avoidant but not secure babies. No attach-ment group differences emerged for mater-nal distal and proximal behavior (Lewis &Feiring, 1989). Data from other countries aresimilar. An investigation in northern Ger-many that included three home visits acrossthe first year found that at 2 and 6 months,mothers of insecure/ambivalent infants weresignificantly less sensitive to their babies'signals than were mothers of secure infants,but did not differ from mothers of avoidantbabies (Grossmann, Grossmann, Spangler,Suess, & Unzner, 1985). At 10 months, how-ever, there were no attachment group differ-


ences. In a Japanese sample in which allinsecure babies were classified insecure/ambivalent, home observation data indi-cated that at 1 month, mothers of insecure/ambivalent infants heid their babies approx-imately half as frequently as did mothers ofsecure babies (Miyake, Chen, & Campos,1985). (Recent work, however, has sug-gested that these results be viewed as pre-liminary because separation episodes ofhighly distressed infants were not curtailed[Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, & Freitag,1991].)

Home observation studies: Low-incomefamilies.—A large research project examin-ing low-income, predominantly white moth-ers and their infants during the first yearpartly supported findings from studies usingpredominantly white middle-class samples(Egeland & Farber, 1984). At 3 (but not at6) months, mothers of insecure/ambivalentinfants verbalized to their infants signifi-cantly less than did both other groups ofmothers. In contrast, however, to findingswith some middle-class samples (e.g., Ains-worth et al., 1978), these mothers were asresponsive to their babies' crying as mothersof secure infants and significantly more sothan mothers of avoidant infants. This dis-crepancy may be a function of the fact thatresponsiveness to crying was assessed onlyduring a single feeding session, a contextthat may not provide much opportunity formaternal responsiveness to crying.

Observations in kibbutzim.—Examina-tions of Israeli kibbutzim-raised infants haveprovided additional information about theconnection between maternal availabilityand insecure/ambivalent attachment. Tradi-tional kibbutzim use communal sleeping ar-rangements in which a single, frequently un-familiar night-time caregiver is responsiblefor all infants. This arrangement, which be-gins with infants as young as 6 weeks old,increases the likelihood that when upset, in-fants receive delayed attention from un-known caregivers. These infants, who can beconsidered to experience inconsistent andrelatively low caregiver availability, have ahigher than nonnal rate of insecure/ambiva-lent attachment to both mother (33% and52% in two samples) and metapelet (32%)(Sagi et al., 1985; Sagi, van IJzendoorn,Aviezer, Donnell, & Mayseless, 1994, in thisissue). Some kibbutzim-raised infants, how-ever, live in infant houses only during theday, and the distribution of attachmentgroup classifications for these infants moreclosely approximates the American distribu-tion (20%; Sagi et al , 1994, in this issue).

Home observation studies: Maltreatedinfants.—Investigations of maltreated in-fants support a pattem wherein mothers ofinsecure/ambivalent infants are the leastavailable to their babies. In one study oflow-income, mostly white families, althoughthere were only two insecure/ambivalent in-fants, analyses using behavioral ratings ofStrange Situation resistance (the characteriz-ing behavior ofthe insecure/ambivalent pat-tern) provided indirect information aboutthe insecure/ambivalent pattem (Lyons-Ruth, Connell, & Zoll, 1989; Lyons-Ruth,Connell, Zoll, & Stahl, 1987). Greater infantresistance was significantly associated withrelatively low matemal availability assessedin several ways in the home: flatness of af-fect, time out of the room, and (less) verbalcommunication; greater matemal disen-gagement and lower relational touchingwere marginally significantly related to in-fant resistance.

Neglect can be viewed as an extremeform of low matemal availability. Followingarguments proposed here, an associationshould exist between neglect and insecure/ambivalence. Support for this expectationcomes from a meta-analysis in which attach-ment was assessed in a total of 122 mal-treated 12-month-olds (Youngblade & Bel-sky, 1990). The majority ofthe 17 neglectedchildren (52%) were classified insecure/am-bivalent, and 50% of all insecure/ambivalentinfants had experienced neglect. It is impor-tant to note that by 18 months, most ne-glected children were classified insecure/avoidant.

In sum, a largely consistent pattern inwhich relatively low matemal availability islinked with insecure/ambivalent attach-ment has emerged from home observationresearch involving samples of infants fromboth middle- and low-income families, fk'omAmerican samples as well as those from othercountries, and from maltreated as well as non-maltreated infants. The extent to which thispattem emerges from laboratory studies isconsidered next.

Laboratory studies.—Paralleling thepattern in the home observation studies,links between relatively low matemal avail-ability and the insecure/ambivalent patternhave emerged from several laboratory-basedinvestigations. In one investigation of white,largely middle-class families, parenting be-havior observed while the mother com-pleted a questionnaire was coded as eitherappropriate, insufficient, or intrusive (Smith& Pederson, 1988). Compared to both other

groups of mothers, mothers of insecure/am-bivalent 1-year-olds received significantlymore "insufficient" ratings and significantlyfewer "appropriate" ratings. Convergentfindings emerged from Matas, Arend, andSroufe's (1978) examination of problem solv-ing at 24 months in a white, middle-classsample. Mothers of insecure/ambivalenttoddlers were rated signifieantly lower thanmothers of secure toddlers (and equal tomothers of avoidant toddlers) on two dimen-sions of matemal behavior related to avail-ability—supportive presence ("being in-volved") and quality of assistance ("givingassistance when needed"). Similar, althoughonly marginally significant, findingsemerged from a replication study (Frankel& Bates, 1990). In another investigation thatfocused principally on toddler-peer rela-tions, mothers' responses to their children'scontacts were also observed (Pastor, 1981).The sample contained approximately equalnumbers of white and minority low-SESsubjects. Compared to both other groups ofmothers, those of insecure/ambivalent chil-dren were significantly less likely to accepttheir children's contacts, and significantlymore likely to ignore their children's con-tacts. They were also significantly morelikely than mothers of secure infants, but notmothers of avoidant infants, to reject theirchildren's contact and to be unsupportive.There were no attachment group differencesfor matemal directiveness.

Summary.—Although exceptions exist,taken as a whole, findings from numerousresearch projects examining a variety of sam-ples and assessing maternal availability in avariety of ways and contexts converge to of-fer considerable support for the propositionthat relatively low matemal availability andthe insecure/ambivalent pattem are associ-ated. This relation emerged from Ains-worth's original study, based on 72 hours ofhome observations over the course ofthe in-fants' first year, and even though the obser-vations of none of the subsequent home in-vestigations were nearly as extensive (mostlasted 2-6 hours), findings have been largelyconsistent. It is noteworthy that in no homeor laboratory inquiry have mothers of inse-cure/ambivalent infants, unlike mothers ofinsecure/avoidant infants, emerged as moreavailable than other mothers.

Maternal Behavior in Responseto Infant Exploration

Ainsworth (1984) has emphasized therelation between mothers' facilitation of ex-ploration and children's attachment secu-rity: "Among a child's behavioral cues are


those indicating that he enjoys the adven-tures of exploring, he dislikes being inter-rupted when absorbed in autonomous activ-ity, and he is gratified when he masters anew skill or problem on his own. A parentcannot be truly sensitive to a child's cues ifshe ignores these" (p. 568). Whereas moth-ers of insecure/ambivalent infants appearrelatively unavailable in many contexts, thisdoes not appear to be the case in the contextof the child's exploration. Three studieshave reported that mothers of insecure/am-bivalent infants are not only relatively lessavailable to their infants, but are also insome way directly interfering with their in-fant's exploration. More specifically, this re-search reveals a pattern in which mothers ofthese infants are relatively less involved attimes when their infants might want atten-tion, yet relatively more involved at timeswhen their infants might not want attention(e.g., when they may prefer to explore).

In Ainsworth's Baltimore investigation,although by the fourth quarter of the firstyear mothers of insecure/ambivalent infantswere significantly less available than moth-ers of secure infants, they were also morelikely to be "occupied with routines," fre-quently holding their infants to feed them.This holding, because these mothers tendedto "resist any effort the baby made to feedhimself" (Ainsworth etal., 1978, p. 146), wasinterpreted as thwarting the infant's first at-tempts at autonomy. A similar patternemerged from the Isabella and Belsky (1991)investigation: although, unlike other moth-ers, mothers of insecure/ambivalent infantswere characterized as relatively less atten-tive to their infants' signals, they were alsomost likely to initiate interaction with theirbabies "at times when babies were other-wise involved or seemingly unwilling to in-teract" (p. 381). Finally, in the Miyake et al.(1985) sample, which contained secure andinsecure/ambivalent Japanese infants, at 1month, mothers of insecure/ambivalent in-fants held their infants only half as fre-quently as mothers of secure infants. Yet,when their infants were 7V2 months old,these mothers were significantly more likelythan mothers of secure infants to intrude by"interrupting the baby's ongoing activitywithout a bid by the baby" (p. 292).

In sum, although there are only threeexaminations of matemal behavior related toinfant exploration, these consistently dem-onstrated that mothers of insecure/ambiva-lent infants directly interfered with theirchildren's exploration. This interferencemay contribute to infant preoccupation with


the mother in the Strange Situation: mater-nal interference with child exploration shiftsthe child's attention from the environmentto the mother. Although this direct interfer-ence may seem to contradict the mother'srelatively low availability, the context inwhich each occurs is critical, and it may wellbe that both contribute to a common out-come: the child's exaggerated dependenceand lack of autonomy. Furthermore, thiscombination of relatively low availabilityand direct interference may contribute to thechild's perception ofthe mother as inconsis-tent. Isabella and Belsky (1991) come to asimilar conclusion, describing the mothersof insecure/ambivalent infants as ". . . notonly underinvolved but also tend[ing] to ex-hibit poorly timed interactive bids—that is,mothers are inconsistent" (p. 381).

INFANT CHARACTERISTICS

It is important to consider not only ma-ternal contributions but also infant contribu-tions to the insecure/ambivalent attachmentpattern. There is evidence that temperamentmay be related to certain infant behaviorsoccurring within the Strange Situation (i.e.,distress and crying, response to the stranger;Gunnar, Mangelsdorf, Larson, & Hertsgaard,1989; Vaughn, Lefever, Seifer, & Barglow,1989). A meta-analysis that drew upon 15 in-vestigations, each containing both StrangeSituation and temperament data, revealed amodest association between temperamentalproneness to distress and Strange Situationcrying and resistance (Goldsmith & Alansky,1987).

It is essential to remember, however,that evidence of a connection between in-fant temperament and attachment behavioris quite different from evidence of a connec-tion between temperament and attachmentclassification. Results from many empiricalinvestigations examining attachment classi-fications in conjunction with infant charac-teristics indicate, for the most part, that thetwo are not directly associated (e.g., Belskyet al., 1984; Belsky & Rovine, 1987; Crock-enberg, 1981; Egeland & Farber, 1984; Gun-nar et al., 1989; Mangelsdorf, Gunnar, Kes-tenbaum, Lang, & Andreas, 1990; Vaughn etal., 1989) but may relate indirectly via mod-erating factors such as maternal social sup-port (e.g., Crockenberg, 1981) and maternalpersonality (e.g., Mangelsdorf et al., 1990).Furthermore, the oniy study that examineddistress during separations separately fromdistress during reunions found difficult tem-perament to relate to distress during separa-

tions, but not to distress during reunions (theepisodes important for attachment classifi-cation) (Vaughn et al., 1989). It is importantto note that one possible interpretation of arecent meta-analysis indicating some con-cordance between an infant's attachmentclassification to mother and to father (Fox,Kimmerly, & Schafer, 1991) is that infanttemperament may, in fact, be related to at-tachment classification.

Even though the connections betweenattachment classification and temperamentare generally weak, it is intriguing and rele-vant to the present review to note that therelatively few instances in which attachmentquality and infant characteristics are directlyrelated all involve the insecure/ambivalentpattem. In Ainsworth's Baltimore sample(M.D. Ainsworth, personal communication,October 17, 1981), two ofthe four insecure/ambivalent infants (and none ofthe other in-fants) had perinatal complications. In an-other study, nurses in the newborn nurseryfound infants later classified insecure/am-bivalent to be less alert and active than bothother groups of infants, although no attach-ment group differences emerged on indicesof contentment or ease of care (Egeland &Farber, 1984). In addition, newborns laterclassified insecure/ambivalent, compared toa group consisting of all other infants, hadlower 5-min (but not 1-min) Apgar scores,and lower 7-day (but not 10-day) BrazeltonNeonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale sum-mary scores (Waters, Vaughn, & Egeland,1980). A similar association between the in-secure/ambivalent pattern and early physi-cal difficulty emerged from another study ofAmerican middle-class mother-infant dyads(Belsky & Rovine, 1987). Furthermore, inthe study of Japanese infants (Miyake et al.,1985), insecure infants, all of whom were in-secure/ambivalent, were significantly moreirritable than secure infants as newborns. (Itis notable, however, that a recent study ofhigh-risk infants, all of whom had been irri-table newboms, revealed that 79% ofthe in-secure infants were avoidant, not ambiva-lent; van den Boom, in press.)

In sum, studies addressing the relationbetween infant characteristics and attach-ment security generally demonstrate few di-rect associations. However, the links that doemerge repeatedly distinguish the insecure/ambivalent infants and point to a relation be-tween these infants and some sort of bio-logical vulnerability. The fact that infantvariables are linked only to the insecure/am-bivalent group suggests that characteristics


intrinsic to the infant may affect the develop-ment of these infants more than any others.Future studies ofthe relations among attach-ment, neonatal characteristics, and infanttemperament examined within a perspectivein which the mutually influential nature ofattachment and temperament is considered(see Stevenson-Hinde, 1991) may well beparticularly relevant for further understand-ing of the insecure/ambivalent pattern.

Sequelae of Insecure/Ambivalent Attachment

A converging body of empirical work inwhich mothers' physical or psychologicalpresence was experimentally manipulatedhas indicated that matemal unavailabilityhinders infant exploration and increases at-tention to the mother (Ainsworth & Wittig,1969; Carr, Dabbs, & Carr, 1975; Rheingold,1969; Sorce & Emde, 1981). Furthermore,naturally occurring "experiments" in whichchildren are separated from their mothers fora few days or more (experiences thought toundermine confidence in the availability ofthe mother) document a connection betweenthe mother's inaccessibility and the child'sfearfulness and inhibited exploration(Bowlby, 1973; Dunn, Kendrick, & Mac-Namee, 1981; Robertson & Robertson,1969). If experimentally manipulated or nat-urally occurring brief reduced maternalavailability can heighten infant attention tothe mother and hinder exploration, it seemsreasonable to expect that chronic, long-term,naturally occurring experiences may havesimilar effects. In this section, research ex-amining infant attention to mother and in-fant exploration is reviewed.

INFANT ATTENTION TO MOTHER

Although few attachment studies havedirectly addressed the issue of infant atten-tion to mother, several have found greaterattention to be characteristic of insecure/ambivalent babies. No study has revealeddiscrepant findings.

One Strange Situation investigation ex-amined social referencing (specifically, theextent to which infants looked to their moth-ers directly after looking at the stranger, pre-sumably to gain reassurance in the face ofuncertainty) (Dickstein, Thompson, Estes,Malkin, & Lamb, 1984). Insecure/ambiva-lent babies referenced their mothers sig-nificantly more than both secure and avoid-ant babies during the initial 3 min of thestranger's presence. Furthermore, whereasthe referencing of other babies declined lin-

early, the referencing of the insecure/am-bivalent babies increased sharply whenthe stranger initiated interaction with themother, not when the stranger initiated in-teraction with the baby himself. Perhapswhat threatened these infants most was notthe stranger, but the diversion of maternalattention from them as their mothers beganto talk with the stranger. It is conceivablethat these infants, unsure that the mother'sattention could be regained, felt it necessaryto monitor her activities. Ainsworth (1992)made a similar interpretation in consideringsocial referencing in her own sample: "themain issue for the infant seemed to be theavailability ofthe mother rather than any in-formation she might offer him that would re-solve uncertainty about how to respond tothe stranger" (p. 350). In another Strange Sit-uation study, insecure/ambivalent infantswere significantly more likely to referencetheir mothers on the stranger's initial en-trance than were both other groups of in-fants, and spent significantly more time dur-ing the preseparation episodes looking attheir mothers than did secure (but not avoid-ant) babies (Cassidy, 1983).

Three additional inquiries examininginfant monitoring of the mother all docu-ment a link between the insecure/ambiva-lent pattern and heightened monitoring. Al-though findings were not always statisticallysignificant, they are consistent and thereforenoteworthy. In the Miyake et al. (1985) in-quiry, there was a marginally significanttrend for insecure/ambivalent infants to in-terrupt their play more than secure babies.The authors noted that these breaks oc-curred "in the service of proximity seeking"(p. 293): these babies left their play to goto their mothers. In a second study (Pastor,1981), a marginally significant trendemerged for insecure/ambivalent toddlers,compared to other toddlers, to be in closeproximity to their mothers and to look mostat their mothers during a laboratory free-playsession with an unfamiliar playmate. In athird investigation that used a similar pro-cedure, 3-year-old children who had beeninsecure/ambivalent infants were signifi-cantly more likely than children who hadbeen secure, and equally likely as childrenwho had been avoidant, to interact with theirmothers (Jacobson & Wille, 1986).

EXPLORATORY COMPETENCE

In this section, several components ofexploratory competence are reviewed: un-certainty and fearfulness, exploration of the


general physical environment, explorationwith toys, and exploration with peers.

Uncertainty and FearfulnessThe heightened distress during the

Strange Situation of insecure/ambivalent in-fants can be viewed as at least partly re-flecting fear of a new place, fear of thestranger, and fear of separation from the par-ent. Ainsworth (1992) conducted post-hocanalyses of her original Baltimore data andreported that insecure/ambivalent infantswere overrepresented among the babieswho showed clear-cut fear in the Strange Sit-uation before the entrance of the stranger,when babies are free to play in the presenceof their mothers. Two studies have exam-ined attachment and fearfulness in other sit-uations. In one, insecure/ambivalent infantsshowed greater behavioral indices of fear ina laboratory setting than did secure infants;attachment groups did not differ on physio-logical indices of fearfulness (Miyake et al.,1985). The second revealed that infants clas-sified insecure/ambivalent were more be-haviorally inhibited at 2 years than insecure/avoidant infants, although not more than se-cure infants (Calkins & Fox, 1992).

Inhibited ExplorationExploration of the general environ-

ment.—Three investigations, all withlargely white, middle-class samples, haveexamined attachment in conjunction withexploration of the environment in relativelygeneral terms. In the first, Hazen and Dur-rett (1982) studied 2V2-year-olds during afree-play situation in an unfamiliarmultiroom playhouse. Although attachmentgroups did not differ in amount of explora-tion, they did differ in the quality of explora-tion, with insecure/ambivalent toddlersshowing significantly more restricted explo-ration than secure toddlers. A second studyrevealed insecure/ambivalent infants tohave significantly greater difficulty "negoti-ating the environment" than secure (but notavoidant) toddlers (Cassidy, 1986). A thirdinquiry revealed that children who had beeninsecure/ambivalent were significantly lesslikely than secure children (but not avoidantchildren) to study the environment, and sig-nificantly more likely to engage in solitaryplay with toys and in interaction with theirmothers (Jacobson & Wille, 1986). The au-thors interpreted these findings as reflectinga tendency for insecure/ambivalent childrento be less interested in attending to explora-tion of the novel elements of a situation (inthis case, the environment, a new peer) andmore interested in attending to the familiar

(in this case, play with familiar toys, theirmothers).

Play with toys.—Six studies have exam-ined attachment and toy play, and all havereported an association between the inse-cure/ambivalent pattem and inhibited ex-ploration with toys. In one study, insecure/ambivalent 3-month-olds played signifi-cantly less with objects/toys in the homethan did both other groups of infants (Lewis& Feiring, 1989). In another inquiry, inse-cure/ambivalent babies spent significantlyless time than secure babies manipulatingtoys in the lab (Miyake et al., 1985). Thereis evidence to suggest that this pattern con-tinues into toddlerhood. Compared to bothsecure and insecure/avoidant toddlers, inse-cure/ambivalent toddlers have been foundto engage in significantly less imaginativesymbolic play (Matas et al., 1978) and in sig-nificantly poorer exploration of a "curiositybox" (see Sroufe & Egeland, 1991). In yetanother investigation, insecure/ambivalenttoddlers were found to engage in signifi-cantly lower quality play than secure, butnot avoidant, toddlers (Cassidy, 1983).

Finally, an investigation designed to as-sess attachment group differences in infants'tendencies to exercise fully their exploratoryabilities is particularly relevant (Belsky,Garduque, & Hrncir, 1984). The quality ofinfants' solitary play with toys in a laboratory("performance") was compared to the qual-ity of their elicited play ("competence"). Al-though attachment groups did not differ oneither play performance or play competence,a linear trend analysis revealed that the gapbetween competence and performance wassignificantly larger for insecure/ambivalentinfants than for others: these infants werethe least likely to exercise their frill range ofabilities when playing alone. Thus, althoughinsecure/ambivalent infants were able toplay at higher levels, they did not. It appearsas if something stood in the way of their abil-ity to use their frill capabilities. According toBowlby (1973), and indicated by the studiesassociating the insecure/ambivalent patternwith relatively high degrees of attention tomother, the interfering factor is the child'spreoccupation with the mother, provoked byuncertainty about her availability.

Play with peers.—With development,peers come to be one ofthe most salient "ob-jects" in the environment, and peers can beviewed as one ofthe most important featuresof the environment that merits exploration.Data from several studies examining attach-


ment and peer interaction reveal associa-tions between inhibited peer play and inse-cure/ambivalence that parallel other formsof inhibited exploration.

Five studies provide converging data.In one study, toddlers classified insecure/ambivalent as infants exhibited relativelyconstrained peer-directed behaviors in alaboratory free-play session (Pastor, 1981).These toddlers were, compared to both se-cure and avoidant toddlers, significantly lesslikely to direct social offers to their peersand significantly more likely to ignore thesocial offers of their peers, a combinationthat suggests that the insecure/ambivalenttoddlers were more withdrawn from theirplaymates. In the second study, childrenwho had been insecure/ambivalent infantswere significantly more dependent andhelpless in the preschool than previously se-cure children, but not than previously avoid-ant children (Sroufe, 1983). In the thirdstudy, the interactions of peer dyads con-taining an insecure/ambivalent toddler sug-gested that these children are viewed as de-pendent: eliciting nurturance from securepeers, exploitation from avoidant peers, andreciprocal immaturity from insecure/ambiv-alent peers (Troy & Sroufe, 1987). Neithersecure nor avoidant children elicited theseparticular responses. In the fourth study,preschool children who had been insecure/ambivalent infants were found to be lessagentic (confident, assertive) than childrenwho had been secure, but not than childrenwho had been avoidant, a finding that theauthors interpreted as "consistent with thepattern of passivity predicted for [ambiva-lent] children" (Erickson, Sroufe, & Ege-land, 1985, p. 162). However, contrary to ex-pectations (and to Sroufe's [1983] findings),insecure/ambivalent children were found tobe more dependent than avoidant but notsecure children, a finding that the authorsattributed to insufficient measurement of de-pendence in their study. In the fifth study,although no differences in rates of social be-haviors were found, children who had beenclassified insecure/ambivalent were lesslikely than all other children (combined) tobe involved with preschool classmates andless likely to dominate them (LaFreniere &Sroufe, 1985). When examined separately bygender, the data revealed significant differ-ences for girls only. This gender differencediffers from that found in a sample of 6-year-olds whose mothers completed Achenbach'sChild Behavior Profile, which examineschildren's peer behavior and social activities

in school as well as behavior problems(Lewis, Feiring, McGuffog, & Jaskir, 1984).Infant insecure/ambivalent attachment wasassociated with later withdrawal and incom-municativeness for boys only.

A connection between social inhibitionand submissiveness and the insecure/am-bivalent pattem also emerged from a follow-up investigation of 5-year-old Israeli kib-butzim children, all of whom has beensecure or insecure/ambivalent as infants(Oppenheim, Sagi, & Lamb, 1988). Childrenclassified insecure/ambivalent to the meta-pelet were significantly less dominant,purposive, goal-directed, achievement-oriented, and independent than childrenclassified secure. There were no differencesamong children based on attachment classi-fications to mothers or fathers. However, thisshould not necessarily be viewed as incon-sistent with findings from other studies: forthese kibbutzim-raised children, the attach-ment figure with principal developmentalinfluence may well have been the metapelet(Oppenheim et al., 1988).

A pattem of social inhibition and sub-missiveness can, when chronic and extreme,develop into the behavior problem of pas-sive withdrawal. In one follow-up study,three groups of early school-aged childrenwere identified: passive-withdrawn, aggres-sive, and control (Renken, Egeland, Marvin-ney, Mangelsdorf, & Sroufe, 1989). Contin-gency table analyses provided support forthe expected association between 18-month(but not 12-month) insecure/ambivalent at-tachment and later passive withdrawal. Theeffect was significant for boys only.

A recent study of attachment and loneli-ness in young children also provided rele-vant data (Berlin, Cassidy, & Belsky, inpress). A linear trend analysis revealed that5—7-year-olds who had been insecure/am-bivalent in infancy reported the most loneli-ness. Considered in the context of literaturedescribing some lonely children as shy andwithdrawn (Cassidy & Asher, 1992), thesedata are congruent with a pattem in whichwithdrawal and insecure/ambivalent attach-ment are linked.

Summary.—A particular form of explor-atory incompetence appears to relate tothe insecure/ambivalent pattern: insecure-ambivalent children seem the most fearfuland inhibited in exploration with both toysand peers. However, it is important to ac-knowledge the sporadic nature of some ofthe findings related to exploration with


peers. In one study, exploratory competencewas predicted by attachment to metaplot butnot to mothers or fathers, in another studyby attachment at 18 months but not 12months, and for girls only in one study andboys only in another. Although these com-plexities, which may result from varyingmethods, samples, and procedures, are dif-ficult to reconcile, the data nonetheless forma coherent pattern. Indeed, in no case haveinsecure/ambivalent children shown greaterexploratory competence than other children.

The Insecure/Ambivalent Pattern ofAttachment across the Life Span

Certainty about the availability of an at-tachment figure is thought to be importantfor healthy functioning across the life span(Bowlby, 1979, 1988). Whereas infant explo-ration may be hampered unless an attach-ment figure is physically present, with in-creasing age, people can tolerate greaterdistance from attachment figures and greatertime between contacts (Maccoby & Feld-man, 1972; Marvin & Greenberg, 1982).Nonetheless, it is clear that a pattern markedby clinging, immature overdependency, pre-occupation with attachment figures, and lim-ited exploration—all mixed with ambiva-lence—exists in some children and adults.Parents and teachers describe difficult,"clingy" children. Clinicians address prob-lems associated with children's refusal toseparate from parents (Bowlby, 1973; Mi-nuchin, 1974). In adults, these patterns areevident in the relationships of adult childrento their parents and in romantic attachments(Bowlby, 1980; Hazen & Shaver, 1987). Inparticularly pathological "role-reversing"relationships, adults may cling to theiryoung children and attempt to derive secu-rity from them. In this section, in an attemptto illuminate these behavior patterns inolder individuals, several new techniquesfor assessing attachment organization be-yond infancy are described.

Attachment in Young ChildrenPatterns of attachment in preschool chil-

dren (3- and 4-year-olds) have been identi-fied recently using a modified version oftheStrange Situation and a new classificationsystem (Cassidy & Marvin, with the MacAr-thur Attachment Working Group, 1992). Asystem for coding attachment in 5-7-year-olds based on the child's reunion behaviorfollowing a 1-hour laboratory separation hasalso been devised (Main & Cassidy, 1988).At these older ages, parallels with the infantpatterns emerge. One group of children, also

called insecure/ambivalent, respond on re-union similarly to insecure/ambivalent in-fants, emphasizing their dependence on theparent in several ways. Their attachment be-haviors are heightened, their exploratorybehaviors reduced. Dependence may alsobe emphasized through conflicted and unre-solved interaction about parental leavetak-ing. Ambivalence and anger directed at bothparent and stranger may also be present. Al-though there are considerable similaritiesacross ages, a developmental shift is evident,and the behaviors of the school-aged chil-dren are generally more subtle than those ofthe preschool children.

Extensive research involving home ob-servation is needed for validation of both ofthese new classification systems, as is re-search examining the correlates of this at-tachment pattern in young children. How-ever, the following are already evident: (a)the reunion behaviors of children in thisgroup are similar to those of insecure/ambiv-alent infants in terms of their ambivalentpreoccupation with the attachment figure,(fo) the proportion of insecure/ambivalentchildren in nonpathological samples con-sisting of predominantly white, working-and middle-class families is similar to thatof insecure/ambivalent infants from similarsamples, (c) this classification is stable frorninfancy to age 6, (d) this classification is sta-ble in 6-year-olds across a 1-month period,and (e) this classification is associated in the-oretically predicted ways with children'ssocioemotional functioning (Achermann,Dinneen, & Stevenson-Hinde, 1991; Breth-erton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990; Cassidy,1988; Cicchetti & Barnett, 1992; DeMulder& Radke-Yarrow, 1991; Greenberg, Speltz,DeKlyen, & Endriga, 1992; Main & Cassidy,1988; Shouldice & Stevenson-Hinde, 1992;Speltz, Greenberg, & DeKlyen, 1990; Ste-venson-Hinde & Shouldice, 1990; Turner,1991, 1993; Wartner, Grossmann, Fremmer-Bombik, & Suess, 1994, in this issue).

The Adult Attachment InterviewA similar pattern in which attachment is

emphasized, a pattern in fact termed "preoc-cupied," has emerged from the use of theAdult Attachment Interview (AAI; George,Kaplan, & Main, 1985; Main & Goldwyn,1984, in press—a). This interview was de-signed to tap the adult's "present state ofmind with respect to attachment" ratherthan the nature of the individual's relation-ship with a particular attachment figure inthe past. This 1-hour, semistructured inter-view probes attachment-related experiences

during childhood such as memories of feel-ing loved or unloved, memories of being up-set or ill, and memories of separations andlosses. (For further information about theAAI, see Main & Goldwyn, in press-a.)

Adults in the preoccupied group appearpreoccupied with their relationships withtheir parents. Their family background maybe characterized by a weak or incompetentmother, and at least one overinvolved par-ent. The interviews of these individuals canbe viewed as similar to the behaviors of inse-cure/ambivalent infants and children in sev-eral ways. First, the "inability to move be-yond a sense of involvement in particularrelationships or attachment-related experi-ences, while either accepting this state pas-sively, or else struggling against it withoutsuccess" (Main & Goldwyn, in press-b, p.96) is strikingly reminiscent ofthe insecure/ambivalent baby's "inability to move be-yond" the immediate presence ofthe motherto explore. Second, the ambivalence of pre-occupied adults, manifested by their oscil-lating descriptions of their parent(s), paral-lels the behavioral ambivalence seen inyounger individuals. Finally, the anger andconflict expressed by some individuals inthis group closely parallels the anger charac-teristic of insecure/ambivalent infants andchildren. These adults are embroiled in cur-rent anger or disagreements that they are un-able to resolve or convincingly analyze. Re-cent evidence has emerged to suggest thatthe AAI has good test-retest reliability, in-tercoder reliability, and discriminant valid-ity (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzen-doorn, 1993). In both American and British(nonpathological) samples examined to date,in which subjects are mostly white and mid-dle class, the proportion of adults classifiedin this category is similar to that of infantsclassified insecure/ambivalent: 10%-20% inseven samples (Ainsworth & Eichberg,1991; Benoit, Vidovic, & Roman, 1991; Be-noit, Zeanah, & Barton, 1989; Benoit, Zea-nah, Boucher, & Minde, 1992; Crowell &Feldman, 1991; Fonagy, Steele, & Steele,1991; Kobak & Sceery, 1988). It is interest-ing to note that in two separate samples ofAfrican-American and Hispanic high-risk ad-olescent mothers, only 3% and 6% of thesubjects were classified in this group (Ward,Botyanski, Plunket, & Carlson, 1991; Ward,Plunket, Carlson, & Kessler, 1990).

Infonnation about the concurrent func-tioning of adults classified in the preoccu-pied group has come from a study of 53 col-lege students (Kobak & Sceery, 1988). The


preoccupied college students were rated bypeers as significantly more anxious than bothsecure and other insecure ("dismissing") in-dividuals. These peer reports meshed withthe fact that these individuals, compared tosecure (but not avoidant) individuals, re-ported significantly greater concerns abouttheir social competence. This concern canbe viewed as an example of hindered explo-ration of the environment. The heightenedanxiety of these individuals may also be re-fiected in their reports of more physicalsymptoms at the end of their first collegeyear than both other groups of subjects.

Several recent studies have provided in-formation about the parenting behavior ofmothers in the preoccupied group as well asinformation about their children. All of thesestudies reported findings suggesting thatpreoccupied mothers behave in ways that in-terfere with their children's autonomy or ex-ploration. One of these examined mothers'"affect attunement" with their 12-month-olds during several laboratory situations(Haft & Slade, 1989). The authors codedmothers' affective responses to their infants'affective expressions as signaling either ac-ceptance or rejection. Preoccupied motherswere found to be "attracted to" expressionsof fear in their babies, and infant fear, ofcourse, generally results in reduced infantexploration. Furthermore, "unlike the dis-missing [and secure] subjects, these mothersdid not attune to or validate their babies' ex-pressions of initiative and exuberance dur-ing play. They either totally ignored thesekinds of expressions in their babies or misat-tuned to them" (p. 167).

Kobak and his colleagues (Kobak, Fer-enz-Gillies, Everhart, & Seabrook, in press)also reported an association between mater-nal preoccupation assessed in the AAI andmaternal interference with child autonomyin a mainly white, middle-class sample. Forolder adolescents (but not younger adoles-cents), greater preoccupation was related topoorer performance in a mother-adolescentdiscussion task about the adolescents' im-pending departure from home for college.Mothers with greater preoccupation showedgreater anxiety during the conversation, di-rected the conversation toward their ownemotions, and communicated doubts aboutthe adolescent's ability to function autono-mously. These adolescents, in turn, wereless autonomous than other adolescents dur-ing the discussion. (See also Allen & Hauser,1993, for related, convergent findings.)

Converging data emerged from a labora-


tory investigation of 64 white toddlers andtheir mothers (Crowell & Feldman, 1988,1991). During a problem-solving task, thestyle of maternal assistance characteristic ofpreoccupied mothers, but not of secure ordismissing mothers, was labeled "confusingor chaotic . . . complicated and difficult forthe child to understand" (p. 1277). In rela-tion to separation and reunion, preoccupiedmothers were poorer at preparing their chil-dren for separation and less responsive totheir children than secure mothers, hadgreater separation difficulty and anxiety thanboth secure and dismissing mothers, and aslower leave-taking than dismissing moth-ers. It seems likely that all of these matemalbehaviors could constrain children's explor-atory competence. This study also providedinformation about the behavior of the chil-dren of adults in the preoccupied group.These children were rated as significantlymore negative, avoidant, controlling, andnoncompliant than both other groups of chil-dren when interacting with their mothers,and were significantly more anxious and lessaffectionate than children of secure but notdismissing mothers. Children of preoccu-pied mothers were also rated as less persis-tent in problem-solving tasks than both othergroups of children. Finally, compared tochildren of both secure and dismissingmothers, children of preoccupied motherswere more anxious when their mothers werepreparing to leave, and were more avoidantand more negative on reunion (Crowell &Feldman, 1991).

These similarities between children ofmothers classified preoccupied and inse-cure/ambivalent children is not surprising,because in four of the six studies in whichconnections between parent classificationand infant classification have been exam-ined, there have been striking matches be-tween parent classification as preoccupiedand child classification as insecure/ambiva-lent. In Main and Goldwyn's (in press—a)original sample, seven of eight insecure/am-bivalent babies had parents whose inter-views were classified as preoccupied; sevenof nine preoccupied parents had infants clas-sified as insecure/ambivalent (see also Ains-worth & Eichberg, 1991; Benoit et al., 1991;and Ward et al., 1991). Thus, it appears thatmany insecure/ambivalent babies have par-ents whose own "state of mind" in relationto attachment is characterized by confusion,anger, and ambivalence. It is important tonote, however, that in two studies with sig-nificant overall AAI-Strange Situation con-

cordance, one in which adult attachmentwas assessed before the infants' births andone in which it was assessed at the time ofthe Strange Situation, insecure/ambivalentattachment and the preoccupied patternwere not significantly linked (Fonagy et al.,1991; Zeanah etal., 1993). Nonetheless, datafrom studies using the Adult Attachment In-terview may be providing not only informa-tion about a group of adults who are similarin organization to insecure/ambivalent in-fants, but also information about the repre-sentations and behaviors of parents of inse-cure/ambivalent infants.

Understanding Behavior Associatedwith the Iiusecure/AndtivalentPattern; Ghild and MaternalStrategies

In this section, we review the conceptof behavioral strategies as a means for bothchildren and parents to increase the likeli-hood that attachment-related needs will bemet. Ways in which this concept can contrib-ute to an understanding ofthe insecure/am-bivalent attachment pattem are described.Child strategies for responding to relativelylow or inconsistent matemal availability areexamined first. Next, matemal strategies formaintaining a given "state of mind" in rela-tion to attachment are examined. Finally, theinterconnections between mother and childstrategies are considered.

Child Strategies: Adapting to RelativelyLow Maternal Availability

Just as other organisms are geneticallyendowed to be flexibly responsive to therange of environments in which they mayfind themselves, so too, according to Main(1990; Main & Solomon, 1986), does the in-fant possess the biologically based flexibilityto adapt to a range of caregiving "environ-ments" or behavior. Such tailoring ofthe in-fant's behavior to conform to environmentalcircumstances is described as a "strategy"which leads to behavior that has the ultimatefrinction of protection. Strategies are thoughtto be automatically employed and need notbe in any way conscious for the individual(Main, 1990).

In response to a parent who is mini-mally or inconsistently responsive, the inse-cure/ambivalent infant is thought to developan understandable strategy of increasing hisbids for attention. The insecure/ambivalentinfant is viewed in this scheme as having acoherent strategy of exhibiting extreme de-pendence on the attachment figure. Main


and Solomon (1986) state that "in its height-ened display of emotionality and depen-dence upon the attachment figure, this infantsuccessfully draws the attention of the par-ent" (p. 112).

This strategy of heightening attachmentbehavior can be viewed in both positive andnegative lights. It is adaptive because itserves to increase or maintain proximity tothe attachment figure, which in turn in-creases the infant's chances of survival(Bowlby, 1969). This strategy, however, isnot wholly satisfactory. One drawback is thatit requires the infant to take on "more thanoptimal responsibility for maintaining con-tact" (Bretherton, 1985, p. 11), and thus pre-vents the infant from attending to his owndevelopmentally appropriate tasks. The in-fant's subjective experience is also clearlyless than optimal. For instance, fearfulnessmay result from limited familiarity and suc-cess with the environment. Moreover, theinfant who must resort to extremes of af-fective signaling with unpredictable successin gaining the parent's response is poorlyequipped to understand and organize his af-fective experiences (Kobak & Sceery, 1988).A clear distinction must be made, then, be-tween biological adaptation and psychologi-cal adaptation when discussing behavior ofthe insecure/ambivalent group (Lamb et al.,1985).

This strategy of emphasizing immaturityin order to increase care is not restricted tothe context of routine parent-child interac-tion. For instance, this strategy is commonlyused by young children following the birthof a sibling in order to regain the degree ofcaregiving received previously, a tendencylong described as regression (Dunn et al.,1981; Trivers, 1974). This strategy is alsoused by the young of other species as well.For instance, when their mothers becomeless available to them during weaning, free-ranging infant baboons dramatically in-crease their clinging and suckling behaviors(DeVore, 1963). In addition, the strategy isused by some human adults both to elicitcaregiving in others and to enhance the feel-ings of competence in these caregivers. A

stereotypic scenario appears occasionally inchildren's cartoons: a helpless heroine exag-gerates her immaturity (pulls in her shoul-ders to make her body appear smaller, putsher fingers in her mouth) to evoke protectionand care from the strong, capable hero, astrategy generally effective in engenderingthe hero's feelings of competence. Similarly,family systems theorists describe a pattemin some dysfunctional families wherein onefamily member plays the role of the "sacri-ficial lamb" by engaging in immature, ineptbehavior with the result of bolstering thesense of competence of another family mem-ber who supposedly serves as guide/protec-tor (Minuchin, 1974; see also Marvin &Stewart, 1990). Social psychologists too havedescribed a similar pattern. Jones and Pitt-man (1982), for instance, referred to a "self-presentational strategy" in which a personexploits his own weakness and dependencein an attempt to have his needs met. Consis-tent with the view presented here, this strat-egy is viewed as largely nonconscious, andin some ways detrimental to the individual.^

Matemal Strategies: Inconsistent MatemalAvailability, Interference with Exploration,and the Preservation of a "State of Mind"

Just as children can be thought to haveattachment-related strategies, so can adults.Matemal strategies are thought to emerge asattempts to preserve a particular "state ofmind" in relation to attachment (Main &Goldwyn, in press—a). For mothers of inse-cure/ambivalent babies, it has been sug-gested that what is important is the mainte-nance of a "preoccupied" state in whichattachment is emphasized to an extent whichprecludes autonomy.

If it is important for some parents thatthey maintain a state of mind in which at-tachment is emphasized, it seems reason-able that they may develop strategies di-rected to this end. Main (Main & Goldwyn,in press-a) has proposed that mothers withan insecure state of mind may use a strategyof selective filtering of infant signals in orderto preserve their state of mind. Why mightinconsistent matemal responsiveness be aneffective strategy for preserving a state of

^ Jones and Pittman (1982) also proposed that these individuals might come to emphasizethe family, a notion that meshes with findings that mothers of insecure/ambivalent infants areoften classified as "preoccupied" with their own childhood attachment relationships (Ainsworth& Eichberg, 1991; Goldwyn & Main, in press-a). According to Jones and Pittman, "the suppli-cant's self-esteem must be threatened by his cultivation of dependence and ineptitude. . . . Anemphasis of the team, the organization, the family, the ethnic group may perhaps be a savingfeature ofthe supplicant's phenomenal self If one is dependent on others, it may be comfortingto think in terms of larger symbiotic units when refiecting on one's identity" (p. 258).


mind in which attachment is emphasized?According to Main (1990), infant signals forcaregiving may interfere with the mother'spreoccupation with her own attachmentfigures and with her model of herself aschild rather than as caregiver. In addition,the mother's selective ignoring of her in-fant's interest in autonomous explorationmay reflect the fact that attention to such sig-nals would disrupt a model in which mother-child closeness is of prime importance.

An additional explanation for inconsis-tent matemal responsiveness to infant sig-nals for care is proposed here: if a mother(consciously or nonconsciously) wants to beparticularly assured of her importance to theinfant, of his dependency on her, and of hisavailability to meet her own attachmentneeds, a highly efficient parental strategy isone of low or intermittent responsiveness.Relative unresponsiveness may be viewedas a maternal strategy for increasing the in-fant's bids for attention. Ready respon-siveness significantly reduces or terminatesinfant attachment behavior (Ainsworth et al.,1978; Korner & Thoman, 1972). A parentwith a conscious or nonconscious desire toprolong the baby's need for her will notquickly respond to attachment behavior. Al-though a mother may find infant clinginessaversive in many respects (Kagan, Reznick,Clarke, Snidman, & Garcia-Coll, 1984), thisclinginess may, at the same time, fulfill herneeds and provide comfort. Mahler (Mahler,Pine, & Bergman, 1975) described a similarprocess within a different framework: a par-ent threatened by the child's emerging au-tonomy (in Mahler's words, "separation-individuation") may fail to respond to theattachment needs that naturally arise duringhis early attempts at exploration (fail to "sat-isfy residual dependency needs"). WithinMahler's framework, the increased depen-dency that results from this "rapprochementcrisis" is viewed as potentially satisfying tothe parent. Mahler's clinical observationsare strikingly similar to clinical observationsof some insecure/ambivalent infants, whosemothers are "gratified by their children's de-pendence and who discourage their un-folding autonomy through exploration by ei-ther withdrawing emotionally or becomingpunitive. These children are likely to equateexploration and physical distance from themother with maternal emotional unavailabil-ity and lack of protection" (Lieberman &Pawl, 1988, p. 334).

Another strategy for increasing dyadicproximity involves parental incompetence.

The incompetent individual is more likelyto elicit certain types of proximity and carethan the competent individual. The parent'sincompetence may increase parent-childproximity in several ways. First, just as childincompetence may elicit parental care-giving, so may parental incompetence elicitchild caregiving. Given both experimentaland observational evidence that young chil-dren respond with caregiving to the vulnera-bility and distress of others (Strayer, 1980;Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, & King, 1979),it seems reasonable to suppose that a childundergoing repeated daily experiences withan incompetent parent would be concernedabout her well-being and would want to stayclose and to monitor her. These childrenmight choose closeness not only becausethey need to monitor the parent's availabil-ity (as Bowlby suggests) but also, as they getolder, because they want to monitor hersafety. Yet this too is a form of monitoringthe availability of the attachment figure, be-cause if something happens to her, the se-cure base is gone. Second, parental incom-petence can mean that the child lacks asecure base from which to explore and forthat reason remains close to the parent.Third, parental incompetence may engenderincompetence in the child, which may, inturn, promote proximity.

Parental incompetence, however, canbe viewed in ways other than as a strategy.The concept of strategies suggests intention-ality (albeit nonconscious intentionality). Inrelation to the insecure/ambivalent pattern,the mother is thought to "choose" (noncon-sciously) not to respond to her child's attach-ment signals. However, it is important toconsider the possibility that the mother maynot have the ability to respond. Her ownbackground may not have provided her withopportunities for learning competent parent-ing skills.

Just as children use different strategiesacross time that nonetheless serve the samefunction, so may parents. Beyond infancy,maternai insensitivity may increasingly takethe form of ignoring the child's signals forautonomy and overemphasizing the parent-child relationship. The parent of an olderchild, who may be by this time a dependent,clingy child, may then emphasize the inti-macy and specialness ofthe relationship andbecome much more (perhaps overly) in-volved with the child. Parental "infantali-zation" of the young child may also occur.As Bowlby stated, "treating the child asyounger than he or she is is one technique


for ensuring that the child remains availableas an attachment figure" (J. Bowlby, per-sonal communication, cited in Stevenson-Hinde, 1990, p. 223). (See Marvin & Stewart,1990, and Bowlby, 1980, for further dis-cussion of this paradoxical combinationwherein the parent both uses the child as anattachment figure and treats him as if hewere younger or less competent than he ac-tually is.)

Strategies and CooperationAlthough infant behavior patterns may

begin as understandable responses to paren-tal behavior, the infant later may come torecognize that these behavior patterns areones with which the parent feels most com-fortable. It seems likely that the child him-self would feel most comfortable when theparent is most comfortable. It is proposedhere, as it has been by others (Main & Gold-wyn, in press-a; Sullivan, 1953) that chil-dren are skillful in recognizing what leadsto parental comfort and then attempt to "co-operate" with their parents in maintainingthe desired state. It is proposed that in thecase of insecure/ambivalent children, thechild recognizes at some level that the par-ent desires a relationship in which attach-ment is emphasized. The child may realizethat this pattern of preoccupation with theparent, heightened dependency, and re-duced exploration are at some level reassur-ing to the parent: his immaturity reassuresthe parent that she will be needed; his de-pendency reassures the parent that the childwill remain close, that is, "reassures the par-ent that he will not become an adult andleave" (Bacciagaluppi, 1985, p. 371).

Main (1990) has proposed that in at-tempting to cooperate with the parent, theinsecure infant is in the difficult position ofconsidering two sets of behavior: his ownand his parent's. Unlike the secure infant,who in times of distress has only one consid-eration (how to alert the parent of his wishfor proximity), the insecure infant has twoconsiderations (how to alert the parent of hiswish for proximity and how the parent islikely to respond). The strategy of the inse-cure infant is thought to evolve as the in-fant's attempt to address both consider-ations. For the insecure/ambivalent infant,the strategy of heightened attachment be-havior can be viewed as useful for both him-self (by increasing the likelihood of gainingthe attention of an unpredictably availablecaregiver) and for his parent (by assuring theparent that he will stay close to her).

The infant's attempts to cooperate with

the parent necessitate alterations of whatmight be his normally occurring responsesto the environment. Main (1990) has specu-lated that such alterations involve changesin infant attention, perception, and memory.For an infant whose caregiver requires exag-gerated infant dependence, a shift in atten-tion toward attachment-eliciting situationsthrough manipulation of perception andthought may occur. Similarly, such an infantmay selectively attend to the frightening as-pects of the environment, interpreting, asMain (1990) has suggested, "an environmentknown at some level to be quiescent asthreatening" (p. 61). Heightened recall ofmemories that activate attachment-relatedbehaviors and emotions may also occur.Thus, according to Main's speculations, theinfant's perception (based on previous inter-actions) of probable parental unrespon-siveness is accurate. This accurate percep-tion of parental behavior is thought tonecessitate a distorted perception of the en-vironment as frightening. This distortion, inturn, serves to heighten attachment behaviorand usefully increases the likelihood thatthe child will gain access to the attachmentfigure when needed. It is proposed here thatbecause another of the infant's percep-tions—that the parent prefers him to empha-size attachment—is also accurate, infant dis-tortion of the environment can be viewed asuseful in meeting the parent's needs as wellas his own needs.

Fntnre Directions

A review of studies in which data aboutinsecure/ambivalent individuals are re-ported reveals that this pattern may (a) resultfrom relatively low or inconsistent maternalinvolvement, direct matemal interferencewith infant exploration, and infant biologicalvulnerability, and (fo) lead to increased at-tention to mother and decreased exploratorycompetence. Additional work examining allof these components of maternal and infantfunctioning is needed. Of particular impor-tance are issues that have been relatively lit-tle examined—maternal direct interferencein exploration and infant attention to mother.

The extensive findings of relatively lowmaternal availability are consistent with the-oretical propositions that it is inconsistentmaternal availability that contributes to inse-cure/ambivalence. When frequencies of ma-ternal behaviors are examined, mothers whoare inconsistently available will, on average,appear to be less available than those moreconsistendy available. Research examining


the extent to which this relatively low avail-ability ofthe parents of insecure/ambivalentchildren does in fact reflect inconsistentrather than uniformly low availability is im-portant. This will require the use of mea-sures designed specifically to address thisissue in studies in which data are gatheredacross considerable time and contexts. Ex-amination of within-group variation shouldalso prove useful in differentiating these tworesponse pattems; groups with inconsistentmothers should have larger variances thanthose with consistent mothers.

The theoretical framework proposedhere to interpret both maternal and child be-havior leads directly to specific testable re-search questions. Do the parents of inse-cure/ambivalent children in fact want tomaintain a state of mind in which attachmentis emphasized? Are they threatened by theirchild's exploration and desires for auton-omy? Do the ways in which these individu-als process attachment-relevant stimuli (e.g.,attentional, interpretive, and memory pro-cesses) reflect these proposed models? Forinstance, do they attend more to attachment-relevant stimuli than do other individuals?Do they interpret stimuli related to separa-tion and autonomy as more threatening thando other individuals? If maintenance of astate of mind in which attachment is empha-sized is, in fact, important to these parents,how might they behave toward their chil-dren in order to achieve this? Are there waysin which these parents encourage depen-dency? Examination of the beliefs that par-ents of insecure/ambivalent children holdabout themselves as parents and about theirchildren is also important (see Bretherton,Biringin, Ridgeway, Maslin, & Sherman,1989).

There are also many research questionsthat focus on insecure/ambivalent children.Do insecure/ambivalent children view theattachment figure as unpredictable? Whatare insecure/ambivalent children's workingmodels of likely parental responses to thechildren's signals both for care and for au-tonomy? Do these children process attach-ment-related information differently fromother children? Do these children behavior-ally demonstrate greater dependency, fear-fulness, or incompetence in the presence ofthe parent than psychophysiological mea-sures reflect (e.g., Miyake et al., 1985) orthan they demonstrate when their parentsare not present?

There are several additional ways in

which future research can contribute to un-derstanding of the insecure/ambivalent pat-tern. For instance, cross-national work canprovide information about this pattern.Although insecure/ambivalent infants con-sistently comprise a small proportion ofAmerican samples, distributions vary acrosscountries. Whereas in northern Germanythere are nearly no insecure/ambivalent in-fants (Grossmann et al., 1985), in both Israeland Japan virtually all insecure children areclassified insecure/ambivalent (Miyake etal., 1985; Sagi et al., 1985; see also van IJ-zendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988). Although itis not clear that classifications emergingfrom use of the Strange Situation in othercountries have the same meaning as they doin America, preliminary findings related tothe insecure/ambivalent pattem in Israeland Japan converge in large part with thosefrom American samples. Research examin-ing why cultures vary in the proportion ofinfants classified insecure/ambivalent willshed important light on this pattern.

Examination of subgroups of insecure/ambivalent individuals can also provide rel-evant information. Throughout this review,insecure/ambivalent infants and childrenhave been described as a homogenousgroup. In fact, there are two subgroups ofinsecure/ambivalent infants, and perhapsnot coincidentally, these parallel two sub-groups of adults classified Preoccupied inthe Adult Attachment Interview (Main &Goldwyn, in press—b). One subgroup of in-fants (Cl) is characterized by angry, activereunion behavior; this parallels a subgroupof adults preoccupied with current activeanger toward their parents. The other sub-group of infants (C2) is characterized by pas-sivity; this parallels a subgroup of adultscharacterized by vagueness, confusion, andpassivity of discourse. The subgroups havenot been examined separately here becauseextremely little has been reported aboutthem. Due to sample sizes, few researchersreport findings related to subgroups. Al-though this is understandable, this practiceobscures understanding ofthe subgroups. InAinsworth's original sample, mothers in thetwo subgroups were described differently,with the two mothers of Cl babies character-ized as "highly interfering in the baby's ex-ploration," and the two mothers of the C2laabies characterized as "grossly ignoring"(Ainsworth, Bell, & Stayton, 1971, p. 48).

The important issue of distinguishinginsecure/ambivalent children from inse-cure/avoidant children has been addressed

Cassidy and Berlin 987

by others (Sroufe & Egeland, 1991). At-tempts to understand differences betweenthese two groups have been difficult, and thefact that many reports do not present dif-ferences between these two insecuregroups hinders attempts to distinguish thesegroups. Although insecure/ambivalent andinsecure/avoidant individuals may be simi-lar at a global level (e.g., insensitive, un-skilled with peers), they may differ at a morespecific level. Thus, theoretically based ex-amination of, for instance, differences in theways in which mothers of these two groupsof children are insensitive or in the ways inwhich these two groups of children manifesttheir dependency (Sroufe, Fox, & Pancake,1983) is crucial.

All of these avenues of research shouldbe broad enough to include examination ofinsecure/ambivalent individuals during allphases of the lifespan, of clinical as well asnonclinical samples, and of child-father aswell as child-mother attachment. To addressthese issues, large data sets and collabora-tive multisample projects containing rela-tively large numbers of insecure/ambivalentinfants will be particularly valuable. Moremodest samples can also provide useful in-formation if, in the context of statistical com-parisons of secure versus insecure groups,data for each insecure group are also re-ported separately. These methods are essen-tial for further understanding of the inse-cure/ambivalent pattern of attachment. Suchan understanding can, in turn, illuminate at-tachment processes as a whole.

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review paper the insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment...

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