Attachment Theory

Definition

An attachment refers to the strong emotional bond that exists between an infant and his or her caretaker. The theory of attachment is designed to explain the evolution of that bond, its development, and its implications for human experience and relationships across the life course. Although attachment theory has primarily been a theory of child development, since the 1980s, the theory has had a large impact on social psychological theories of close relationships, emotion regulation, and personality.

History and Background

Attachment theory was originally developed by John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst who was attempting to understand why infants experience intense distress when separated from their parents. Bowlby noticed that separated infants would go to extraordinary lengths (e.g., crying, clinging, frantically searching) to either prevent separation from their parents or to reestablish contact with a missing parent. At the time, psychoanalytic writers held that these behaviors were expressions of immature defense mechanisms that were operating to repress emotional pain, but Bowlby observed that such expressions may serve an evolutionary function.

Drawing on evolutionary theory, Bowlby postulated that behaviors such as crying and searching were adaptive responses to separation from a primary attachment figure—someone who provides support, protection, and care. Because human infants, like other mammalian infants, cannot feed or protect themselves, they are dependent upon the care and protection of older and stronger adults. Bowlby argued that, over the course of human evolution, infants who were able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure (i.e., by looking cute or by expressing in attachment behaviors) would be more likely to survive to a reproductive age. According to Bowlby, a motivational-control system, what he called the attachment behavioral system, was gradually crafted by natural selection to help the child regulate physical proximity to an attachment figure.

The attachment behavior system is an important concept in attachment theory because it provides the conceptual link between evolutionary models of human development and modern theories on emotion regulation and personality. According to Bowlby, the attachment system essentially “asks” the following question: Is the attachment figure nearby, accessible, and attentive? If the child perceives the answer to this question to be “yes,” he or she feels loved, secure, and confident, and, behaviorally, is likely to explore his or her environment, play with others, and be sociable. If, however, the child perceives the answer to this question to be “no,” the child experiences anxiety and, behaviorally, is likely to exhibit attachment behaviors ranging from a simple visual search for the parent to active following and vocal signaling. These behaviors continue until either the child is able to reestablish a desirable level of physical or psychological proximity to the attachment figure, or until the child “wears down,” as may happen in the context of a prolonged separation or loss. In such cases, Bowlby believed that the child may develop symptoms of depression.

Individual Differences in Infant Attachment Patterns

Although Bowlby believed that his theory captured the way attachment operates in most children, he recognized that there are individual differences. Some children, for example, may be more likely to view their parents as inaccessible or distant, perhaps because their parents have not been consistently available in the past. However, it was not until Bowlby's colleague, Mary Ainsworth, began to study infant–parent separations that individual differences in attachment were incorporated formally into attachment theory. Ainsworth and her students developed a technique called the “strange [Page 56]situation”—a laboratory paradigm for studying infant–parent attachment. In the strange situation, 12month-old infants and their parents are brought to the laboratory and are separated from one another and then reunited. In the strange situation, most children (i.e., about 60%) behave in the way implied by Bowlby's “normative” understanding of attachment. Specifically, they become upset when the parent leaves the room, but when he or she returns, they actively seek the parent and are easily comforted by him or her. Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are often called “secure.” Other children (about 20% or less) are ill-at-ease initially and, upon separation, become extremely distressed. Importantly, when reunited with their parents, these children have a difficult time being soothed and often exhibit conflicting behaviors that suggest they want to be comforted but that they also want to “punish” the parent for leaving. These children are often called “anxiousresistant.” The third pattern of attachment that Ainsworth and her colleagues documented is called “avoidant.” Avoidant children (about 20%) don't appear too distressed by the separation and, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent, sometimes turning their attention to play objects on the laboratory floor.

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