Lead
"Our baby smiles at everyone. She never fusses around strangers at all — I worry sometimes that she doesn't have a real bond with us."
You hear this kind of concern. You also hear the opposite: "Our son gets so upset around unfamiliar people. Every visit to the in-laws is a production." Both reactions come from genuine, careful observation. Both also rest on the same underlying confusion: the assumption that how strongly a child reacts to strangers is a window into the quality of that child's attachment.
It isn't. Stranger wariness and attachment security are related in the popular imagination but largely independent in the research literature. Understanding why is worth the effort.