Review of Attachment Theory - Essay Example

Attachment Theory Literature Review of Attachment Theory Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space (Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969). This attachment does not have to be reciprocal because one person may have an attachment with an individual which is not shared.  Attachment is characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as seeking proximity with the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969). The attachment behavior in adults towards the child includes responding sensitively and appropriately to the child’s needs.  Such behavior appears universal across cultures. Attachment theory provides an explanation of how the parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development. Infants are born with a propensity to direct precursory attachment behaviors to human figures like crying, looking, clinging to which caregivers are particularly likely to respond. These behaviors elicit care giving and bring the caregiver into close proximity with the infant, ensuring protection from environmental dangers and a sense of security. Over time, infants begin to direct these responses primarily to one or a few caregivers. Around 7 to 8 months of age, infants show attachment to caregivers by protesting their leaving and grieving for them during their absence. As toddlers, children form a goal-corrected partnership in that they can begin to perceive events during interactions with mother from her perspective (Bowlby, 1969/1982). Attachment theory is the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). Drawing on concepts from ethology, cybernetics, information processing, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysts, John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of the theory. He thereby revolutionized our thinking about a child’s tie to the mother and its disruption through separation, deprivation, and bereavement. Mary Ainsworth’s innovative methodology not only made it possible to test some of Bowlby’s ideas empirically hut also helped expand the theory itself and is responsible for some of the new directions it is now taking. Ainsworth contributed the concept of the attachment figure as a secure base from which an infant can explore the world. In addition, she formulated the concept of maternal sensitivity to infant signals and its role in the development of infant-mother attachment patterns. The theory in psychology originates with the seminal work of (Bowlby, 1958). In the 1930’s John Bowlby worked as a psychiatrist in a Child Guidance Clinic in London, where he treated many emotionally disturbed children.  This experience led Bowlby to consider the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional and cognitive development.  Specifically, it shaped his belief about the link between early infant separations with the mother and later maladjustment, and led Bowlby to formulate his attachment theory. Bowlby working alongside James Robertson (Bowlby, 1952) observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers.  In 1948, 2 years before Ainsworth’s arrival, Bowlby had hired James Robertson to help him observe hospitalized and institutionalized children who were separated from their parents. Even when such children were fed by other caregivers this did not diminish the child’s anxiety. These findings contradicted the dominant behavioral theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller, 1950) which was shown to underestimate the child’s bond with their mother.  The behavioral theory of attachment stated that the child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant. Bowlby defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (Bowlby, 1969). Borrowing from Freud’s (Freud, 1905/1953) notion that mature human sexuality is built up of component instincts, Bowlby proposed that 12-month-olds’ unmistakable attachment behavior is made up of a number of component instinctual responses that have the function of binding the infant to the mother and the mother to the infant. These component responses (among them sucking, clinging, and following, as well as the signaling behaviors of smiling and crying) mature relatively independently during the first year of life and become increasingly integrated and focused on a mother figure during the second 6 months. Bowlby saw clinging and following habits as possible way of attachment as compared to sucking and crying. Mary Ainsworth’s in her work also enriched the attachment theory. In late 1953, she had left the Tavistock Clinic, obviously quite familiar with Bowlby’s thinking about ethology but not convinced of its value for understanding infant- mother attachment. She headed for Uganda from where she switched gears from her earlier planned investigation of toddlers’ separation responses during weaning to observe the development of infant-mother attachment. As soon as she began her data collection, Ainsworth was struck by the pertinence of Bowlby’s ideas; hence, the first study of infant-mother attachment from an ethological perspective was undertaken several years before the publication of the three seminal papers in which Bowlby (1958, 1959 and 1960) laid out attachment theory. She recruited 26 families with normal babies (ages 1 - 24 months) whom she observed every 2 weeks for 2 hours per visit over a period of up to 9 months to determine the onset of proximity-promoting signals and behaviors, noting carefully when these signals and behaviors became preferentially directed toward the mother. Ainsworth and her colleagues (e.g., Ainsworth & Bell, 1970) were first to provide empirical evidence for Bowlby’s attachment theory. Using the strange situation procedure, Ainsworth and Bell classified infants into one of three categories: (1) secure, in which infants use the mother as a secure base for exploration and seek contact with her after separation; (2) anxious–ambivalent (later called “resistant”), in which infants are unable to use the mother as a secure base and are often angry and push her away upon reunion; (3) anxious–avoidant, in which infants fail to use the mother as a secure base for exploration and avoid the mother upon reunion or approach her only indirectly. In more recent work (Main & Solomon, 1990) a fourth category was devised (disorganized–disoriented) in which there is no predictable or effective pattern of eliciting care giving behaviors by infants when stressed. Each of these attachment classifications, across the lifespan, may be considered on a continuum of emotional regulation for managing affect, events, and relationships (Dozier, Stovall, & Albus, 1999). The research done by the two and many other later showed that humans evolved an attachment behavior system because it offers those who have it an evolutionary advantage, that is, infants who seek the closeness and security of their mothers (or other primary caregiver) are more likely to survive, and mothers who are responsive to their infant’s needs and provide security are more likely to have their infants survive, thereby passing on their genes. The attachment behavior system becomes active through the course of normal development at about the same time as the exploration behavior system which also provides evolutionary advantage for the developing infant by, for example, encouraging learning about the environment, muscle development, and the beginning stages of the separation that occurs when the child may leave mother and family to establish a family of his or her own. Both systems become active because of developmental changes in the infant such as locomotion and object permanence which facilitates the necessary behaviors within each system. According to McLeod, S. A. (2009), Psychologists have proposed two main theories that are believed to be important in forming attachments. Learning / behaviorist theory of attachment (Dollard & Miller, 1950) suggests that attachment is a set of learned behaviors.  The basis for the learning of attachments is the provision of food.  An infant will initially form an attachment to whoever feeds it. They learn to associate the feeder (usually the mother) with the comfort of being fed and through the process of classical conditioning, come to find contact with the mother comforting. They also find that certain behaviors (e.g. crying, smiling) bring desirable responses from others (e.g. attention, comfort), and through the process of operant conditioning learn to repeat these behaviors in order to get the things they want. The behaviorist framework of explanation would suggest that an infant would form an attachment with a care that provides food (in behaviorist terms, food is the primary reinforcer, the provider of the food is the secondary reinforce). Evolutionary theory of attachment suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others, because this will help them to survive.  The infant produces innate ‘social releaser’ behaviors such as crying and smiling that stimulate innate care giving responses from adults.  The determinant of attachment is not food but care and responsiveness. Bowlby suggested that a child would initially form only one primary attachment (monotropy) and that the attachment figure acted as a secure base for exploring the world. The attachment relationship acts as a prototype for all future social relationships so disrupting it can have severe consequences.  This theory also suggests that there is a critical period for developing at attachment (about 0 -5 years). If an attachment has not developed during this period then the child will suffer from irreversible developmental consequences, such as reduced intelligence and increased aggression. Like most theories, the attachment theory has its strengths and weaknesses. One of its strength is its common sense appeal. In addition, many early studies in attachment followed the model provided by ethologists as they attempted to make objective observations of organisms as they behaved in their natural environments. Bowlby may be credited with almost single–handedly changing the way the modern world looks at parenting roles (Bowlby’s Biography, n.d.). He wrote, “The infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment”. And equally impactful, “Just as children are absolutely dependent on their parents for sustenance, so in all but the most primitive communities are parents, especially mothers and dependent on the greater society for economic provision. If a community values its children it must cherish their parents”. Statements like these were in direct opposition to the thinking and recommendations being made by most commentators of the day who often recommended distant and minimally responsive behavior on the part of parents. In addition, she formulated the concept of maternal sensitivity to infant signals and its role in the development of infant–mother attachment patterns” (Bretherton, 2003). Researchers far removed from attachment theory have reaffirmed Bowlby and Ainsworth’s findings. Harvard psychologist (Kagan, J.1994) writes, “The concept of attachment has a noncontroversial, factual basis… it is reasonable to regard Bowlby’s concept of the attachment bond, representing the product of the thousand or more hours of nurturing interactions between adults and infants during their first year, as a useful construct.” However, Bowlby and Ainsworth strayed from a natural science approach, and their followers have strayed further still. Jerome Kagan, in his article “Three Pleasing Ideas” (Kagan, J. 1994) describes three attractive yet scientifically unsupported premises common in psychological theorizing. The first of these is what he calls the “unencumbered power of early experience” (the other two being “abstract processes” and “sensory pleasure as a primary motivator of behavior”—we will deal with the first of these later). (Kagan, J.1996) writes that psychologists commonly believe “that the experiences of infants can create schemata, habits, and emotions that are enduring, perhaps indefinitely.” This belief is seen clearly in the works of psychodynamic giants like Freud and Erikson, attachment theorists, early behaviorists, and nearly every other school of psychology. Critiques of the Attachment Theory Various psychological theories are against the basic arguments of the attachment theory. Many behavioral theories still argue on “nature vs. nurture” and believe most reactions are learnt and not instinctive. Some of the basic arguments include the following: The critical periods of attachments were too strict. Further research has shown that children can form attachments even after 3 years, an example in instances of adoption where children form an attachment to their adoptive parents. The periods stated in his study may be called sensitive periods of attachment rather than critical periods. Bowlby also believed that the effects of deprivation were irreversible, but this has also been disproved in cases where children have been abandoned and mistreated and yet they have overcome the effects of this and grown to become emotionally stable and dependable adults capable of loving and feeling. Bowlby also believed that attachment was an automatic instinct yet researcher disagree and believe it is a learnt behavior. This means babies don’t form natural bonds with primary caregivers but learn to bond with them. It can be concluded that, the parent-child relationship or rather the caregiver-child relationship has a great impact on an individual’s behavior, their interactions with others, and how they ultimately deal with emotional and cognitive issues in their lives. The attachment theory tries to explain the impact of this early socialization on an individual but one must not disregard the important aspect of socialization, interaction with the environment, individual personality and temperament, which all play a big part in how an individual deals with relationships and situations. References Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1973). The development of infant-mother attachment. In B. Cardwell & H. Ricciuti (Eds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 3, pp. 1-94) Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ainsworth, M.D.S., & Bell, S. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41, 49– 67 Bowlby, J. (1969/1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Loss. New York: Basic Books. Bretherton, I. (2003). Mary Ainsworth: Insightful observerand courageous theoretician. In G.A. Kimble& M. Wertheimer (Ed.s).Portraits and Pioneers in Psychology (5th ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Bowlby, J. (1958). The Nature of the Childs Tie to His Mother.International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39: 350-371. Bowlby J. (1969). Attachment. Attachment and Loss:  Vol. 1. Loss. New York: Basic Books. Bowlby’s Biography (n.d.).A brief sketch of John Bowlby’s biography. Retrieved March9, 2005 from:“http://attachment.edu.ar/bio.html” Dollard, J. & Miller, N.E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill Dozier, M., Cue, K., & Barnett, L. (1994). Clinicians as caregivers: The role of attachment organization in treatment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62, 793–800. Dozier, M., Stovall, K.C., &Albus, K.E. (1999).Attachment and psychopathology in adulthood.In J. Cassidy & P.R. Freud, S. (1953). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 7, pp. 125-245). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1905) Jacobite, D., & Hazen, N. (1999). Developmental pathways from infant disorganization to childhood peer relationships. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment (pp. 671– 687). New York: Milford Press Kagan, J. (1994). Galen’s Prophecy. New York: Basic Books. Kagan, J. (1996). Three pleasing ideas. American Psychologist,51(9), 901,-908. Main, M. (1973).Exploration, play, and cognitive functioning as related to child-mother attachment. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. McLeod, S. A. (2009). Attachment Theory. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html Read More