Attachment

Historical Origins of Bowlby’s Theory of Attachment

John Bowlby, a British psychoanalytic researcher, developed a theory meant to better explain the relationships that occur between infants and their mothers beginning in the first year of life. This work was informed by psychology, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior. Bowlby described attachment as an evolutionary behavioral system that promotes infant survival and protection through the use of behaviors meant to maintain contact between infants and the caregivers who protect them. Because infants are unable to care for themselves, they rely on their caregivers for safety and comfort. The availability and responsiveness of the caregiver can provide the infant with a powerful feeling of security.

In the 1950s, a U.S. researcher named Harry Harlow was interested in the reasons infants cling to their mothers and whether it was based on the need for food or the need for comfort. At the time, the primary argument for why infants formed a special bond with their mothers was that the provision of food by mothers was reinforcing.

Harlow designed a study to test this. He created two artificial mothers for a group of infant monkeys, one that was wire and held a baby bottle, thus providing food, and another that was wrapped in soft terry cloth, thus providing comfort. Harlow observed that when the monkeys were scared, they ran to the cloth mother. They used the bottle mother only for food, sometimes even trying to reach her while still clinging to the cloth mother.

This illustrates that mothers play an important role in comforting their young when they are in distress and that infant and mother relationships do not depend just on feeding. Harlow’s findings informed Bowlby’s thinking about his observations, which began in the 1940s, of young children in institutions and orphanages. Bowlby found that when infants were separated from their mothers and had multiple temporary caregivers, they appeared sad and depressed and did not seem to form healthy relationships with those caregivers or others. These children’s basic needs were met; presumably, the lack of a consistent source of comfort and safety contributed to their atypical behavior.

In the context of a typical parent–child relationship, infant attachments to parents are developed by the end of the first year. During this time, children start to play a more active role in exploring the world; how mothers respond to their infants during this period and the months preceding it plays an important role in the development of infant’s internal working models. Internal working models are mental representations, or schema, that reflect infants’ sense of self and the world around them. Infants who have mothers who are accessible and respond to their needs consistently are likely to develop secure working models, in which they expect their needs to be met and they feel safe exploring.

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