Attachment Theory

www.simplypsychology.org /attachment.html

Saul McLeod

Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another across time and space
(Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1969).

Attachment does not have to be reciprocal. One person may have an attachment to 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).

Attachment behavior in adults towards the child includes responding sensitively and appropriately to the childs
needs. Such behavior appears universal across cultures. Attachment theory provides an explanation of how the
parent-child relationship emerges and influences subsequent development.

Attachment theory in psychology originates with the seminal work of John Bowlby (1958). In the 1930s 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 childs 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.

John Bowlby, working alongside James Robertson (1952) observed that children experienced intense distress when
separated from their mothers. Even when such children were fed by other caregivers, this did not diminish the
childs anxiety.

These findings contradicted the dominant behavioral theory of attachment (Dollard and Miller, 1950) which was
shown to underestimate the childs 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 (1969, p. 194).

Bowlby (1958) proposed that attachment can be understood within an evolutionary context in that the caregiver
provides safety and security for the infant. Attachment is adaptive as it enhances the infants chance of survival.
This is illustrated in the work of Lorenz (1935) and Harlow (1958). According to Bowlby infants have a universal
need to seek close proximity with their caregiver when under stress or threatened (Prior & Glaser, 2006).

Most researchers believe that attachment develops through a series of stages.

Stages of Attachment
Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18 months of life
(this is known as a longitudinal study). The children were all studied in their own home and a regular pattern was
identified in the development of attachment.

The babies were visited monthly for approximately one year, their interactions with their carers were observed, and
carers were interviewed. A diary was kept by the mother to examine evidence for the development of an

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attachment. Three measures were recorded:

Stranger Anxiety - response to arrival of a stranger.

They discovered that baby's attachments develop in the following sequence:

Asocial (0 - 6 weeks)

Very young infants are asocial in that many kinds of stimuli, both social and non-social, produce a favourable
reaction, such as a smile.

Indiscriminate Attachments (6 weeks to 7 months)

Infants indiscriminately enjoy human company and most babies respond equally to any caregiver. They get upset
when an individual ceases to interact with them.

From 3 months infants smile more at familiar faces and can be easily comfortable by a regular caregiver.

Specific Attachment (7 - 9 months)

Special preference for a single attachment figure. The baby looks to particular people for security, comfort and
protection. It shows fear of strangers (stranger fear) and unhappiness when separated from a special person
(separation anxiety).

Some babies show stranger fear and separation anxiety much more frequently and intensely than others, but
nevertheless they are seen as evidence that the baby has formed an attachment. This has usually developed by
one year of age.

Multiple Attachment (10 months and onwards)

The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several attachments. By 18 months the majority of infants
have form multiple attachments.

The results of the study indicated that attachments were most likely to form with those who responded accurately to
the baby's signals, not the person they spent more time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive
responsiveness.

Intensely attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and, interacted with their child
Infants who were weakly attached had mothers who failed to interact.

Many of the babies had several attachments by 10 months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers,
grandparents, siblings and neighbors. The mother was the main attachment figure for about half of the children at
18 months old and the father for most of the others.

The most important fact in forming attachments is not who feeds and changes the child but who plays and
communicates with him or her. Therefore, responsiveness appeared to be the key to attachment.

Attachment Theory
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Psychologists have proposed two main theories that are believed to be important in forming attachments.

Learning / behaviorist theory of attachment (e.g. Dollard & Miller, 1950) suggest 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.

Evolutionary theory of attachment (e.g. Bowlby, Harlow, Lorenz) 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 caregiving 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 an 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.

Harlows Monkeys (1958)

These infants were highly dependent on their mothers for nutrition, protection, comfort and socialization. What,
exactly, though, was the basis of the bond?

The behavioral theory of attachment would suggest that an infant would form an attachment with a carer that
provides food. In contrast Harlows explanation was that attachment develops as a result of the mother providing
tactile comfort, suggesting that infants have an innate (biological) need to touch and cling to something for
emotional comfort.

Harry Harlow did a number of studies on attachment in rhesus monkeys during the 1950's and 1960's. His
experiments took several forms:

1. Infant monkeys reared in isolation He took babies and isolated them from birth. They had no contact with each
other or anybody else. He kept some this way for three months, some for six, some for nine and some for the first
year of their lives. He then put them back with other monkeys to see what effect their failure to form attachment had
on behaviour.

Results: The monkeys engaged in bizarre behaviour such as clutching their own bodies and rocking compulsively.
They were then placed back in the company of other monkeys. To start with the babies were scared of the other
monkeys, and then became very aggressive towards them. They were also unable to communicate or socialise with
other monkeys. The other monkeys bullied them. They indulged in self-mutilation, tearing hair out, scratching, and
biting their own arms and legs.

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Harlow concluded that privation (i.e. never forming an attachment bond) is permanently damaging (to monkeys).
The extent of the abnormal behaviour reflected the length of the isolation. Those kept in isolation for 3 months were
the least affected, but those in isolation for a year never recovered the effects of privation.

2. Infant monkeys reared with surrogate mothers 8 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately
after birth and placed in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and one covered in soft terry
toweling cloth. Four of the monkeys could get milk from the wire mother and four from the cloth mother. The
animals were studied for 165 days.

Both groups of monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother (even if she had no milk). The infant would only go
to the wire mother when hungry. Once fed it would return to the cloth mother for most of the day. If a frightening
object was placed in the cage the infant took refuge with the cloth mother (its safe base).

This surrogate was more effective in decreasing the youngsters fear. The infant would explore more when the cloth
mother was present. This supports the evolutionary theory of attachment, in that it is the sensitive response and
security of the caregiver that is important (as apposed to the provision of food).

The behavioral differences that Harlow observed between the monkeys who had grown up with surrogate mothers
and those with normal mothers were;

a) They were much more timid.

b) They didnt know how to act with other monkeys.

c) They were easily bullied and wouldnt stand up for themselves.

d) They had difficulty with mating.

e) The females were inadequate mothers.

These behaviours were observed only in the monkeys who were left with the surrogate mothers for more than 90
days. For those left less than 90 days the effects could be reversed if placed in a normal environment where they
could form attachments.

Harlow concluded that for a monkey to develop normally s/he must have some interaction with an object to which
they can cling during the first months of life (critical period). Clinging is a natural response - in times of stress the
monkey runs to the object to which it normally clings as if the clinging decreases the stress.

He also concluded that early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage but that its impact could be reversed
in monkeys if an attachment was made before the end of the critical period. However if maternal deprivation lasted
after the end of the critical period then no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the emotional damage
that had already occurred.

Harlow found therefore that it was social deprivation rather than maternal deprivation that the young monkeys were
suffering from. When he brought some other infant monkeys up on their own, but with 20 minutes a day in a
playroom with three other monkeys, he found they grew up to be quite normal emotionally and socially.

Ethics of Harlow's Study

Harlows work has been criticized. His experiments have been seen as unnecessarily cruel (unethical) and of
limited value in attempting to understand the effects of deprivation on human infants.

It was clear that the monkeys in this study suffered from emotional harm from being reared in isolation. This was
evident when the monkeys were placed with a normal monkey (reared by a mother), they sat huddled in a corner in
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a state of persistent fear and depression.

In addition Harlow created a state of anxiety in female monkeys which had implications once they became parents.
Such monkeys became so neurotic that they smashed their infant's face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth.

Harlow's experiment is sometimes justified as providing a valuable insight into the development of attachment and
social behavior. At the time of the research there was a dominant belief that attachment was related to physical (i.e.
food) rather than emotional care.

It could be argued that the benefits of the research outweigh the costs (the suffering of the animals). For example,
the research influenced the theoretical work of John Bowlby, the most important psychologist in attachment theory.
It could also be seen a vital in convincing people about the importance of emotional care in hospitals, children's
homes and day care.

Lorenz's Imprinting Theory

When the geese hatched Lorenz imitated a mother duck's quacking sound, upon which the young birds regarded
him as their mother and followed him accordingly. The other group followed the mother goose.

Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a 12-17 hour critical period after hatching.
This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically.

Imprinting has consequences, both for short term survival, and in the longer term forming internal templates for later
relationships. Imprinting occurs without any feeding taking place. If no attachment has developed within 32 hours
its unlikely any attachment will ever develop.

To ensure imprinting had occurred Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to
mix. When the box was removed the two groups separated to go to their respective 'mothers' - half to the goose,
and half to Lorenz.

Imprinting does not appear to be active immediately after hatching, although there seems to be a critical period
during which imprinting can occur. Hess (1958) showed that although the imprinting process could occur as early as
one hour after hatching, the strongest responses occurred between 12 and 17 hours after hatching, and that after 32
hours the response was unlikely to occur at all. Lorenz and Hess believe that once imprinting has occurred it
cannot be reversed, nor can a gosling imprint on anything else.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-
year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development, 41, 49-67.

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. (1991). Attachments and other affectional bonds across the life cycle. In C . M. Parkes, J.
Stevenson-Hinde, & P. Marris (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle (pp. 33-51). London: Routledge.

Bowlby, J. (1958). The nature of the childs tie to his mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39, 350-371.

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Bowlby J. (1969). Attachment. Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Loss. New York: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J., and Robertson, J. (1952). A two-year-old goes to hospital. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine,
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Dollard, J. & Miller, N.E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill

Harlow, H. F. & Zimmermann, R. R. (1958). The development of affective responsiveness in infant monkeys.
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 102,501 -509.

Hess, E. H. (1958). Imprinting in animals. Scientific American, 198(3), 81-90.

Lorenz, K. (1935). Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels. Der Artgenosse als auslsendes Moment sozialer
Verhaltensweisen. Journal fr Ornithologie, 83, 137215, 289413.

Prior, V., & Glaser, D. (2006). Understanding attachment and attachment disorders: Theory, evidence and practice.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Schaffer, H. R., & Emerson, P. E. (1964). The development of social attachments in infancy. Monographs of the
Society for Research in Child Development, 1-77.

How to cite this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2009). Attachment Theory. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

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