Attachment Theory

Attachment

Psychosocial development occurs as children form relationships, interact with others, and understand and manage their feelings. In social and emotional development, forming healthy attachments is very important and is the major social milestone of infancy. Attachment is a long-standing connection or bond with others. Developmental psychologists are interested in how infants reach this milestone. They ask such questions as: How do parent and infant attachment bonds form? What accounts for children’s attachment differences?

Researchers Harry Harlow, John Bowlby, and Mary Ainsworth conducted studies designed to answer these questions. In the 1950s, Harlow conducted a series of experiments on monkeys. He separated newborn monkeys from their mothers. Each monkey was presented with two surrogate mothers. One surrogate monkey was made out of wire mesh. She could dispense milk. The other monkey was softer and made from cloth: this monkey did not dispense milk. Research shows that the monkeys preferred the soft, cuddly cloth monkey even though she did not provide any nourishment. The baby monkeys spent their time clinging to the cloth monkey and only went to the wire monkey when they needed to be fed. Prior to this study, the medical and scientific communities generally thought that babies become attached to the people who provide their nourishment. However, Harlow (1958) concluded that there was more to the mother-child bond than nourishment. Feelings of comfort and security are the critical components to maternal-infant bonding, which leads to healthy psychosocial development.

Building on the work of Harlow and others, John Bowlby developed the concept of attachment theory. He defined attachment as the affectional bond or tie that an infant forms with the mother (Bowlby, 1969). An infant must form this bond with a primary caregiver in order to have normal social and emotional development. In addition, Bowlby proposed that this attachment bond is very powerful and continues throughout life. He used the concept of secure base to define a healthy attachment between parent and child (Bowlby, 1969). A secure base is a parental presence that gives the child a sense of safety as the child explores its surroundings. Bowlby said that two things are needed for a healthy attachment: the caregiver must be responsive to the child’s physical, social, and emotional needs. In addition, the caregiver and child must engage in mutually enjoyable interactions (Bowlby, 1969).

While Bowlby thought attachment was an all-or-nothing process, Mary Ainsworth’s (1970) research showed otherwise. Ainsworth wanted to know if children differ in the ways they bond, and if so, why.

To find the answers, she used the Strange Situation procedure to study attachment between mothers and their infants (1970). In the Strange Situation, the mother (or primary caregiver) and the infant (age 12-18 months) are placed in a room together. There are toys in the room, and the caregiver and child spend some time alone in the room. After the child has had time to explore the surroundings, a stranger enters the room. The mother then leaves her baby with the stranger. After a few minutes, she returns to comfort her child.

Watch the video: Ainsworth’s Strange Situation study.

Attachment Types

Based on how the infants/toddlers responded to the separation and reunion, Ainsworth identified three types of parent-child attachments: secure, avoidant, and resistant (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970). A fourth style, known as disorganized attachment, was later described (Main & Solomon, 1990).

Table 3.1: Types of Attachments

More recently, attachment theory has been critiqued for its limitations. While it is clear that secure attachments to caregivers influence human development across the lifespan, it is important to note that Harlow’s, Bowlby’s, and Ainsworth’s studies focused, primarily, on the role of the mother.  Also, as we consider the interactions outlined in Table 1, we notice that each interaction is short in duration and does not provide multiple glimpses into the relationship between the caregiver and the child. A longitudinal understanding of that relationship development is lacking.

Researchers have pointed out that a child’s temperament may have a strong influence on attachment (Gervai, 2009; Harris, 2009), and others have noted that attachment varies from culture to culture, a factor not accounted for in Ainsworth’s research (Rothbaum, Weisz, Pott, Miyake, & Morelli, 2000; van Ijzendoorn & Sagi-Schwartz, 2008).

A growing body of research points toward the role of peers in relationship development. This research questions which have more influence: caregivers or peers (Harris 1998). O’Connor and Zeanah (2003) suggest that the definition of attachment disorder might be expanded to include problems in social relationships with peers and social cognitive problems indexed by a difficulty in understanding the thoughts and feelings of self and others. Reframing attachment theory through this lens leads to the question of the theory’s applicability to children with exceptionalities such as Autism Spectrum Disorders or psychiatric disorders where attachments are influenced by the characteristics of the exceptionality.

Researchers are interested in how early experience and attachments impact adulthood, indicating that people who have insecure attachments as small children tend to be drawn to those who fit their expectations, even if they are treated badly. “Our attachment system preferentially sees things according to what has happened in the past,” said Dr. Amir Levine, a psychiatrist at Columbia University and the co-author of the book “Attached,” which explores how attachment behaviors affect the neurochemistry of the brain. “It’s kind of like searching in Google where it fills in based on what you searched before” (Murphy, 2017).  It is important to note that our attachment models are not fixed. Secure attachments formed later in life can help us to override our expectations for insecure attachments.