ABSTRACT
An infant’s avoidance of the parent during reunion in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation procedure is a striking phenomenon. Whereas the majority of infants seek proximity or at least interaction with the parent following a brief laboratory separation, a substantial minority of infants actively avoid the parent. Avoidant infants ignore the parent’s bid for approach or interaction, become preoccupied with a toy, actively turn or move away from the parent, or, if picked up, stiffly hold their bodies away from the parent (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). In a situation in which high activation of the attachment system is normally expected, avoidant infants show a marked absence of distressed affect and attachment behav ior; such infants can be viewed as cutting off affective responses. The presence of the avoidant pattern of attachment in approximately 25% of both middle-class and high-risk samples is a well-replicated finding (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Main & Weston, 1981; Waters, 1978), as is the sta bility of avoidance during infancy (Connell, 1976; Main & Weston, 1981; Owen, Easterbrooks, Chase-Lansdale, & Goldberg, 1984; Waters, 1978).
