Mind changers. Part 2, Mary Ainsworth.

The second in a four-part series looking at the work of key influential psychologists. Here, Claudia Hammond explores the work of Mary Ainsworth who redefined our understanding of a child's earliest relationships. Although in the UK we associate the theory of attachment with John Bowlby, the experiment on which his work is based was carried out by American psychologist Ainsworth. Through her observational work with mothers and infants in Africa, she designed the 'strange situation', a tool which is still used today to examine the parent-child relationship.