Attachment Theory

(This lecture considered attachment in infants although attachment theory considers also adult (romantic) attachment.)

What is attachment?

Attachment has it’s background in Psychoanalysis and Ethology. (Ethology considers the biological and evolutionary contexts in animal behaviour). In ethology Lorenz’s (1952) work with geese and Harlow’s (1958) work with Rhesus monkeys are important

Harlow and Harlow (1958)

• demonstrated that attachment is not a simple reaction to internal drives such as hunger.
• Young monkeys were separated from their mother shortly after birth.
• They were offered two dolls to serve as surrogates to the mother. The first doll had a body of wire mesh. The second doll had a body of soft cloth and foam rubber. Both dolls could provide food by attaching a milk bottle to their chests.
• The experiment was designed to see if the monkeys would cling to the doll providing the soft contact of cloth or to the doll providing the source of food. It turned out that the monkeys would cling to the soft-clothed doll, irrespective of whether it provided food.
• The monkeys also explored more when the soft-cloth doll was near. Apparently, the doll provided them with a sense of security.
• However, the passive doll was not an adequate alternative for a real mother. Infant monkeys which were raised without contact with other monkeys showed abnormal behaviour in social situations. They were either very fearful of other monkeys or responded with unprovoked aggression when they encountered other monkeys. They also showed abnormal sexual responses. Female monkeys who were raised in isolation often neglected or abused their infants.
• This abnormal behaviour is thought to demonstrate that a bond with the mother is necessary for further social development.

(Consider the ethics of this experiment and read Lauren Slater’s Opening Skinner’s Box for a revealing, if biased, look at Harlow.)

Bowlby (1969) fused the psychoanalytic and ethological approaches to produce modern attachment theory.
Bowlby’s theory

• Attachment is a set of behaviours and signals designed to keep parents and infants close to one another
• The biological purpose of this is that the infant gets maximum care from the parent, e.g., protection
• It is activated when there is a separation or threat (fear and distress are triggers)
• Attachment behaviour is any behaviour that results in a person attaining or retaining proximity to a preferred person

The peak period for attachment behaviour in infants is from 8 months to 2-3 years. This is shown by 2 features which seem to be cultural universals:

• Fear of strangers
• Separation distress

This forms a counter balance to the baby’s instinct to wander off and explore.
Also, during this period the infant has a tendency to use the parent as a secure base

The Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

“What is believed to be essential for mental health is that an infant should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment”. Bowlby, 1953

Evaluation and critique of the theory

Research by Suomi and Harlow (1972) points to the ameliorating effects of peers/siblings for maternal deprivation. There is also criticism of the concept of monotropism [what did LY mean by this? I cannot find a definition of this word relevant to this context]. Other attachment figures can compensate for the separation of the primary care giver. Additionally, improved arrangements for institutional care has meant that research no longer upholds all of Bowlby’s predictions. There is no straightfoward link between maternal deprivation and disordered behaviour in adolescence: Rutter (1981) has emphasised the differences between privation, disruption, and distortion of affection bonds.

Ainsworth: The measurement of attachment style

Ainsworth et al (1978) developed the strange situation procedure. This is a structured, lab based observation of how an infant behaves when separated and reunited with a caregiver. The main feature that is observed is the proximity seeking behaviour of the infant on reunion with the caregiver. Ainsworth et al (1978) categorized 3 attachment types (A,B,C) and a fourth (D) was added by Main and Solomon (1990).

Secure (B)

• A child who is securely attached to its parent will explore freely while the parent is present, will engage with strangers, will be visibly upset when the parent departs, and happy to see the parent return.
• Securely attached children are best able to explore when they have the knowledge of a secure base to return to in times of need (also known as “rapprochement”, meaning in French “bring together”). When assistance is given, this bolsters the sense of security and also, assuming the parent’s assistance is helpful, educates the child in how to cope with the same problem in the future. Therefore, secure attachment can be seen as the most adaptive attachment style. According to some psychological researchers, a child becomes securely attached when the parent is available and able to meet the needs of the child in a responsive and appropriate manner. Others have pointed out that there are also other determinants of the child’s attachment, and that behaviour of the parent may in turn be influenced by the child’s behaviour.

Insecure-Avoidant (A)

• A child with an insecure-avoidant attachment style will avoid or ignore the parent - showing little emotion when the parent departs or returns. The child will not explore very much regardless of who is there. Strangers will not be treated much differently from the parent. There is not much emotional range displayed regardless of who is in the room or if it is empty.
• This style of attachment develops from a parenting style which is more disengaged. The child’s needs are frequently not met and the child comes to believe that communication of needs has no influence on the parent.

Insecure-Ambivalent (C)

• A child with an insecure-resistant attachment style is anxious of exploration and of strangers, even when the parent is present. When the mother departs, the child is extremely distressed. The child will be ambivalent when she returns - seeking to remain close to the parent but resentful, and also resistant when the parent initiates attention.
• According to some psychological researchers, this style develops from a parenting style which is engaged but on the parent’s own terms. That is, sometimes the child’s needs are ignored until some other activity is completed and that attention is sometimes given to the child more through the needs of the parent than from the child’s initiation.

Disorganized (D)

• Disorganized attachment is actually the lack of a coherent style or pattern for coping. While ambivalent and avoidant styles are not totally effective, they are strategies for dealing with the world. Children with disorganized attachment experienced their caregivers as either frightened or frightening. Human interactions are experienced as erratic, thus children cannot form a coherent interactive template. If the child uses the caregiver as a mirror to understand the self, the disorganized child is looking into a mirror broken into a thousand pieces. It is more severe than learned helplessness as it is the model of the self rather than of a situation.

What influences the nature of the attachment relationship?

Two main factors have been suggested:

• Caregiver sensitivity
• Infant temperament

Sensitivity is defined as the ability to interpret children’s attachment signals correctly and to respond to these signals promptly and adequately.
Infant temperament seems to have little effect on attachment classification as the correlation between infant-mother and infant-father attachment is very low (Van Ijzendoorn and de Wolf, 1997).
Attachment is therefore not a measure of the infant’s state but of the infant’s relationship with a caregiver.

Criticism of the Strange Situation

From Lamb et al (1985)

• highly artificial
• limited in terms of the information gathered
• fails to take into account mother’s behaviour

Cross-cultural differences

• Meins (2003), Japanese culture - constant body contact
• Goldberg (2000), Kibbutz, strangers

Ethical considerations

• Distressing for child
• Woollett and Phoenix (1991) considered the lack of concern for the feelings and experiences of the mothers themselves

Is secure attachment always a good thing?

You’d think so but Miller (2002) argues that infants increase their chances of survival if they can adapt better to changing circumstances including changing care.

Attachment in a wider context

• Day care
• Relationships with other family members
• Role of social contexts in attachment [what does this mean?]