The Strange Situation Procedure: the role of the attachment patterns in the Italian culture

The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, Wall, 1978) is the most widely used procedure to assess attachment in early childhood (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980). Indeed, this method finds very large application in many fields of research and, particularly, in the intercultural study of attachment. The intercultural applications of the SSP, are referred to various Western cultures and cultures other than the Western one, such as, for instance, the African, Chinese, Japanese and Israeli ones. In this research 76 12-month-old infants were observed in the SSP in order to assess the distribution of infant-mother attachment in the Italian culture, and to compare the pattern classification with other national (Ammaniti et al., 1994; Tambelli et al. 2008) and international non-clinical samples (van IJzendoorn et al., 1992; Schuengel et al., 1999). Results: Results show a significant lower proportion of Secure attachment and more Insecure Avoidant one in the Italian group than in US samples of meta-analytic studies. From a socio-cultural perspective, a possible explanation for the obtained results can be found in the peculiar changes which have come about in child-rearing procedures, especially in first infancy. This behavioral organization could show an adjustment strategy within a context which is not exclusively dyadic anymore, but which requires an ability to find resources even in a condition characterized by daily separations, multiple interactions and repeated caregiving micro-modifications. Keywords: Strange Situation Procedure, Attachment Bond, Secure Attachment, Cultural Issues in Attachment