Security of attachment and stranger sociability in infancy.

The relationship between stranger sociability and the security of the infant-mother attachment relationship was examined in a sample of 43 infants observed initially when they were 12'/2 months old, and again at 19% months of age. The sociability measure was a revision of the Stevenson and Lamb (1979) sequential-initiatives procedure; it was followed by the Ainsworth Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). At both ages, infants in subgroups BI and 82 had the highest sociability scores, whereas Aj and C2 infants had the lowest. Analysis of the relationship between stranger sociability and interactive behaviors in the Strange Situation revealed the centrality of a distal interactive mode in both contexts. Because of a high incidence of family change, only 53% of the infants had the same overall attachment classification at both ages. Sociability scores at 12'/2 and 19'/2 months were highly correlated when attachment status was temporally consistent but were nonsignificantly related when attachment classifications changed over time. Absolute changes in sociability scores reflected a similar pattern of results. Cross-lagged correlational analyses suggested that predictive relationships with the security of attachment are meaningful only when attachment status itself is consistent over time.