A 20-minute lab test can reveal how securely a baby is attached

In Mary Ainsworth's 'Strange Situation' procedure, a parent leaves and returns while researchers watch how the infant reacts. From this brief separation and reunion, Ainsworth identified distinct attachment styles — secure, anxious, avoidant — that still guide developmental psychology today.

— Mary Ainsworth, Mary Blehar, Everett Waters & Sally Wall, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation — 1978
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