Mary Ainsworth

Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth (Salter; December 1, 1913 – March 21, 1999) was an American-Canadian developmental psychologist known for her work in the development of the attachment theory.

She designed the strange situation procedure to observe early emotional attachment between a child and their primary caregiver.

Mary Dinsmore Salter was born in Glendale, Ohio on December 1, 1913, the eldest of three daughters born to Mary and Charles Salter.

Her father, who possessed a master's degree in history, worked at a manufacturing firm in Cincinnati and her mother was a nurse.

Both her parents were graduates of Dickinson College who placed "high value on a good liberal arts education" and expected their children to have excellent academic achievements.

In 1918, her father's manufacturing firm transferred him and the family moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where Salter would spend the rest of her childhood.

Salter was a precocious child who thirsted for knowledge.

She began reading by the age of three, and the family would once a week visit the local library where her mother would select appropriate books for her level.

She was close with her father, who assumed the duties of tucking her in at night and singing to her, but did not have a warm relationship with her mother; Salter later stated that their relationship was marked by her mother's jealousy and interference with the bond she had with her father.

Salter excelled in school, and decided to become a psychologist after reading William McDougall's book Character and the Conduct of Life (1926) at the age of 15.

She began classes at the University of Toronto at the age of 16, where she was one of only five students to be admitted into the honors course in psychology.

She completed coursework for her bachelor's degree in 1935, and decided to continue her education at the University of Toronto with the intention of earning her doctorate in psychology.

She earned her master's degree in 1936 and her PhD was granted in 1939.

Salter's dissertation was titled "An Evaluation of Adjustment Based on the Concept of Security".

Her dissertation stated that "where family security is lacking, the individual is handicapped by the lack of a secure base from which to work."

After graduation, Salter stayed on at the University of Toronto as a teacher before joining the Canadian Women's Army Corps in 1942.

While with the army, Salter began as an Army Examiner who interviewed and selected personnel in Kitchener, Ontario.

Her duties included administering clinical evaluations and personnel assessment tests.

Soon she was promoted as an Advisor to the Director of Personnel Selection of the Canadian Women's Army Corps, and reached the rank of major in 1945.

After victory in the war, Salter returned to Toronto to continue teaching personality psychology, conducted research, and worked with Klopfer on a revision of the Rorschach.

She married Leonard Ainsworth, a graduate student in the Psychology department of University of Toronto, in 1950 and moved to London with him to allow him to finish his PhD at University College London.

She married Leonard Ainsworth in 1950 and moved to London with him to allow him to finish his graduate degree at University College.

While in England, Ainsworth joined the research team of John Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic, investigating the effects of maternal separation on child development.

Although they divorced in 1960, the 10 years of accompanying Leonard to different places for his career gave Mary the opportunity to meet and work with many influential psychologists including John Bowlby, as well as the occasion when they moved to Kampala, Uganda where her first "mother-infant" observation was done.

After many other academic positions, including a long tenure at Johns Hopkins University, she eventually settled at the University of Virginia in 1975, where she remained for the rest of her academic career until 1984.

Ainsworth received many honors, including the G. Stanley Hall Award from APA for developmental psychology in 1984., the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Child Development in 1985 and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association in 1989.

From then she became a professor emeritus and stayed active until the year of 1992.

While working at Johns Hopkins, Ainsworth did not receive the proper treatment considering her skills and expertise, such as a proper salary she deserved considering her age, experience, and contribution to the job.

She had to wait two years for an associate professor position even though her qualifications surpassed the job description.

At the time, women had to eat in separate dining rooms than men, which ultimately meant women could not meet male head department members the "normal way".

She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992.

She died on March 21, 1999, at the age of eighty-five due to a stroke.

During graduate school, Mary studied under the mentorship of William E. Blatz.

Blatz focused on studying what he referred to as "security theory."

This theory outlined Blatz's idea that different levels of dependence on parents meant different qualities of relationships with those parents, as well as the quality of relationships with future partners.

His tiers of dependence were labeled secure dependence, independent security, immature dependent security, and mature secure dependence.

Blatz theorized that the more secure and mature the interaction was between individuals, the more likely the relationship was to be healthy and without insecurities.

After leaving the Canadian Women's corps she returned to Toronto to continue teaching personality psychology and conducting research.

A 2002 Review of General Psychology survey ranked Ainsworth as the 97th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Many of Ainsworth's studies are "cornerstones" of modern-day attachment theory.