Mary Ainsworth Had Her Birth

Mary Ainsworth had her birth on December 1, 1913, in Glendale, Ohio as the eldest daughter of Charles and Mary Salter. Charles was a businessman who preferred to move to Toronto with his family during the post World War I period. Mary Ainsworth was a considered a gifted child to her parents. She learned to read at the age of three years and was very emotionally involved with her father. (Ainsworth, Mary Dinsmore Salter (1913-1999)) Both Charles and Mary Salter, the parents of Mary Ainsworth were graduated from Dickenson College. Charles could gain Masters' degree in History and Mary Salter, Mary Ainswort's mother, for a short while was a teacher and later initiated training to become a nurse. After five years of her graduation she married to Charles and became a housewife. Ainsworth had also two younger sisters. The family of Ainsworth moved to Canada when she was five. Her father was working at a manufacturing firm and soon became the President of his branch. The parents of Ainsworth laid great emphasis on good liberal arts education to their children and stressed on their going to college. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth)

Ainsworth was admitted into the University of Toronto in the year 1929. She was admitted into the honors psychology curriculum along with only four other students. She completed her BA degree in 1935 and her Master's degree in 1936 from the University of Toronto. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) Ainsworth completed her Ph.D dissertation -- 'An Evaluation of Adjustment Based on the Concept of Security' in the year 1939. (Ainsworth, Mary Dinsmore Salter (1913-1999)) She was engaged in teaching at the University of Toronto for some years and joined in the Canadian Women's Army Crop in 1942 during World War II. In 1945 she could reach the rank of the Major in 1945. Returning from Army she rejoined the University of Toronto to teach personality psychology and engage in research. She married Leonard Ainsworth in the year 1950. After marriage they moved to London so as to enable Leonard to complete his graduation degree from the University College. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth)

After a couple of years at Uganda, Ainsworth along with her husband migrated to Baltimore for engagement of Leonard as a forensic psychologist. Ainsworth had to work as a teacher at Johns Hopkins University simultaneously attending the psychological service for two days a week in Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) Ainsworth had no child of her own but always treated her colleagues and students as her family. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) In 1960, Ainsworth and her husband separated following divorce, which was a psychological blow to Mary. This made her depressed and led her to seek psychoanalytic therapy. Such a therapy exerted great impact in her career making her very interested in psychoanalytic literature particularly that of Sigmund Freud.

Further Mary Ainsworth had a special liking for good art. It was recalled that a painting of an Adirondack Mountains scene attracted her. She was much impressed with the painting but had no sufficient money to pay for it. Herman Meril, offered her to buy it 'on time' and pay for it in the manner and time she finds comfortable. Ainsworth accordingly purchased the painting and started a good relationship with Herman Maril and his wife, Esta. Later, Ainsworth also started havinh an extraordinary link with the University of Maryland University College. Ainsworth's loan of eight Maril paintings, presently hanging in the room of the President gives the opportunity to the UMUC for according special thanks to her. In the words of Dena Crosson, curator of UMUC's Arts Program, such paintings have largely increased their collection at UMUC. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth)

The loan of Dr. Ainsworth had supplemented considerable depth to the retrospective of UMUC's Maril. The loan of Ainsworth mostly included the oils on Canvas and includes Near the Ridge prepared during 1964, Vase and Lilies prepared during 1970 and Winter Thaw prepared during 1979. It also included other media such as pen with an ink wash on paper as is the case with Trees at Night prepared during 1974. Herman Meril is considered as one of the best known artists of Maryland. During the post war periods he came to University of Maryland Art Department and gradually became the first professor emeritus of the Department and continued with the school for about four decades till his death in 1986. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth)

Ainsworth was an energetic collector of the works of Herman Maril, emphasizing that she had first become interested in contemporary painting when, she was a student at the University of Toronto, wherein she had an opportunity to get to know the works of Tom Thompson and that of the Group of Seven. Further the Marils had introduced Ainsworth to Cape Cod, which was a profound inspiration for Herman Maril's paintings. Ainsworth was so impressed with the Cape Cod that she expressed, that the Cape Cod assisted her to become aware of many natural vibrations which were on the common themes of sky, water and beach. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth)

The role of Mary Ainsworth in the women's movement was another facet of her contributions. She was not regarded as a militant feminist but confronted the salary discrimination during her initial years at the John Hopkins University. (Mary Ainsworht: Attachment and the Growth of Love) Mary Ainsworth's salary did not commensurate to her age, experience and contributions. The salary did not enhance considerably until the pressures of affirmative action was being set in. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) Up to 1968, women were forced by the University to eat in a separate lunch room with a view to dissuading the women to visualize their counterparts in informal clothing during lunchtime. After 1968, Ainsworth could notice that a sort of reverse discrimination prevailed where women were high in demand since each of the university committee was required to incorporate a woman. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth)

Ainsworth at last settled at the University of Virginia in 1974, after going through several academic assignments. Her research on early emotional attachment was considered as one of her significant contribution to psychology. She developed the concept of 'strange situation' room that became the standard procedure for attachment testing of infants. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) Ainsworth continued to become a fellow of the American Psychological Association from 1972 to 1977. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) Ainsworth was also a member of the British Psychological Association, the Eastern Psychological Association, the Virginia Psychological Association and she worked as the President of the Society for Research in Child Development during the period 1977 to 1979. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) She became the Commonwealth Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia from 1974 till she retired in 1984 as professor emeritus. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth)

Ainsworth was conferred with many awards; and those include the "G. Stanley Hall Award from the APA for developmental psychology in 1984, Award for Distinguished Professional Contribution to knowledge from APA in 1987 and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution award from the APA in 1989." (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) She received Gold Medal for her Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological foundation in 1998. Ainsworth was also a co-recipient of the first Mentoring Award which is being given in the developmental psychological division of the APA. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) She wrote numerous publications and articles like Child Care and Growth of Love in 1956 co-authored with John Bowlby, London, and Infancy in Uganda in 1967; and Patterns of Attachment in 1978 co-authored with M. Blehar, E. Waters and S. Wall Hillsdale, NJ: Elbaum. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) During the war period the works of Dr. Ainsworth were mostly administrative in nature that afforded to evaluate the recruits and assigned them various divisions of duty. This led Ainsworth to engage in teaching at various Universities on projective assessment techniques after leaving the Army. She brought out the volume on the Rorschach-Developments in the Rorschach Technique- along with B. Klpfer, W.F. Klopfer and R.R. Holt. (Mary Ainsworht: Attachment and the Growth of Love)

Ainsworth is best recognized for her theoretical and empirical contributions to learning and quantifying early emotional relationships. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth) The most significant contribution of Ainsworth being a psychologist has been to the world of science. It was the book 'Character and the Conduct of Life' written by William McDougall that impelled Ainsworth to pursue the career of a psychologist. (Ainsworth, Mary Dinsmore Salter (1913-1999)) Further the Interests of Ainsworth in psychology was sparked during her undergraduate periods at the University of Toronto by William Blatz, who had developed 'security theory'. These interests led Ainsworth to develop the concept of 'Strange situation' and it is now seen as a widely applicable tool in the present days in the sphere of developmental psychology. (Mary Ainsworth: Attachment and the Growth of Love)

In an analysis Ainsworth could establish that the mothers who respond more rapidly to the cries of their kids at three months tend to develop secure attachments with their babies within one year of age. In order to quantify the security of a relationship, Ainsworth and her colleagues designed this system of 'Strange situation' for evaluating individual differences in children with particular emphasis on responses to several series of separations and further reunions with their mothers. The formation of this procedure has sparkled with plenty of literature subsequently, analyzing the progress of mother child attachments, the influence of attachments to other caregivers, and the correlates and effects of secure and insecure attachments. It has become recognized as the most widely accepted procedures in the research of child development. (Arcus, Doreen: Ainsworth, Mary (1913- ))

There was no prior knowledge to Ainsworth that an individual could introspectively explain the way one behaved and felt instead of concentrating on the way the external forces mould the behavior. The concept of 'Strange situation' considered family as the secure base from which a developing individual can move out to develop new skills and interests. (Ainsworth, Mary Dinsmore Salter (1913-1999)) Ainsworth's concentration on the significance of mothers to infants increased the concern of mothers who visualized her study as a testimony for confining the choice of women in balancing home and work. (Mary Ainsworht: Attachment and the Growth of Love) Her revelations could visualize a critical departure in perceptions about infancy and child rearing, particularly during 1980s when more and more mothers started joining the workforce leaving the infants in a day care. (Tribute: Mary Ainsworth)

The opportunity for Ainsworth's most significant contribution to the world of psychology came when her husband accepted the offer of a position in East African Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda. Only in Uganda that she started research on mothers and children's in their natural surroundings, watching and recording as far as possible, and analyzing and publishing the data after she joined in Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. On the basis of her studies made in Uganda and analyses in Baltimore Ainsworth could reveal that there prevails qualitatively isolated structure of attachment that gradually exists between children's and their mothers over the initial periods of life. (Arcus, Doreen. Ainsworth, Mary (1913- ))

The works of Ainsworth in London at Tavistock Clinic during the period 1950-1953, influenced John Bowlby, a trained psychiatrist. (Mary Ainsworht: Attachment and the Growth of Love) John Bowlby and Ainsworth continued to work as associates in the study of attachment research and theory. Ainsworth was incorporated into the Tavistock Mother Infant Interaction Study Group that persistently had interactions with varied developmental scientists from different countries and disciplines. (Biography: Mary D. Salter Ainsworth) After joining the research team at Tavistock Clinic in England, Ainsworth was associated with a research project probing into the influence of maternal separation on the personality development of children. Ainsworth and Bowlby soon came to know about the influence of personality development rising from disruption of the mother-child bond, and they required to first be aware of the development of normal mother child relations. Ainsworth and Bowly could conclude that the lack of a mother figure in child gives rise to unfavorable developmental effects.

Ainsworth's earlier anxiety in the study of security was further perpetuated at the Tavistock Clinic and she intended to perform a longitudinal field study of mother-infant interactions so as to understand more about the development of normal mother child relationsh in a natural environment. Ainsworth could get the scope for conducting this study practically, when she left for Africa leaving the Tavistock Clinic in 1954. Then Leonard attained the position at the East African Institute of Social Research in Uganda. It was here that she studied the interactions of mothers and their childeren. This data was brought out years later after she became a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. Ainsworth could reveal that most of the mother-child relations were associated with comfort and security, while some were tense and conflicted. Ainsworth could also reveal about the evidences that were the testimony for the patterns of interactions between mothers and their children associated with the level of responsiveness that the mothers demonstrated their children. (Mary D. Salter Ainsworth)