The Main Characteristics Of Anxious Avoidant

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1) The main characteristics of a anxious avoidant child are that whenever the mum leaves or enters the room, or when the child is put with a stranger, the child does not really care, and shows no sign of distress. A securely attached child would be upset and worried when mum leaves, be scared with the stranger, and will explore within a close proximity of the mum, a anxious resistant child will be highly distressed when mum leaves, be very anxious of strangers, even when mum is there, and will not explore very much. 2) One weakness with the strange situation is the cross-cultural validity of it. The strange situation showed that in Israel there were more anxious resistant children (type C) than in other countries. This result may not be valid as the reason for the type C like behaviour of the Israeli children may be due to the fact that they are raised in a kibbutz where they see no new people, and are always attended too by an adult. This could explain why the children were type C because they would have been petrified with the new environment, new people and lack of care. Another weakness of the strange situation is the ethics of it, both the children, and the parent will at some point feel distressed, and this is a problem for the strange situation as psychological tests cannot psychologically or physically harm their participants. 3) There are several case studies, and research into privation, one case study which shows an extreme case of privation is Genie. Genie was privated from any type of stimulation. When she was found she was abnormally thin, small, did strange arm movements, had a strange walk, was not toilet trained, had not learnt how to use a knife and fork etc. This suggests that a child that is maternally privated can suffer severe physical and mental effects. Although this study cannot be generalised with every other maternally privated child in
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