Attachment Theory in Psychology

Stages of Attachment

From a developmental psychologist’s perspective, one of the most interesting aspects of early human development is that of attachment. First appearing in human infancy (generally the first two years of the human life span), attachment lays the foundations of social, emotional and cognitive development, with repercussions extending into adulthood.

Attachment refers to a particularly strong bond with a specific person or persons. The bond is emotional and affective, and a person that an infant bonds to in this way is known as an attachment figure, usually but not always the biological parent or parents. It is the manner in which the carer interacts with the infant, primarily in times of stress or fear, which shapes the nature of the attachment.

Accordingly, the infant will develop a degree of dependence or independence based upon these early, crucial, interactions. Most researchers believe that attachment develops through a series of stages.

Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson (1964) studied 60 babies at monthly intervals for the first 18months 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. Evidence for the development of an attachment was that the baby showed separation anxiety after a carer left.

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

Up to 3 months of age - Indiscriminate attachments. The newborn is predisposed to attach to any human. Most babies respond equally to any caregiver.
After 4 months - Preference for certain people. Infants they learn to distinguish primary and secondary caregivers but accept care from anyone;
After 7 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.
After 9 months - Multiple attachments. The baby becomes increasingly independent and forms several 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 most time with. Schaffer and Emerson called this sensitive responsiveness. Many of the babies had several attachments by 10 months old, including attachments to mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings and neighbours. 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.

Theories of Attachement

Theorists have proposed a number of factors that are believed to be important in formin attachments.

Learning theory of attachment (e.g. Dollard & Miller) suggests that attachment is a set of learned behaviours. 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 behaviours (e.g. crying, smiling) bring desirable responses from others, and through the process of classical conditioning learn to repeat these 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’ behaviours such as crying and smiling that stimulate caregiving from adults. The determinant of attachment is not food but care and responsiveness. Bowlby suggested that a child would initially form only one attachment 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.

Harlow’s Monkeys (1959)

attachment The behaviourist framework of explanation would suggest that an infant would form an attachment with a carer that provides food (in behaviourist terms, food is the primary reinforcer, the provider is secondary). Harlow and Zimmerman (1959) found evidence against this hypothesis using rhesus monkeys.

Harlow did a number of studies on attachment in monkeys. His first ones were in 1959. He stated that monkeys must form their attachments during the first year of life. His experiments took several forms:

1. Infant monkeys reared in isolation – some died, others were frightened and behaved in an abnormal manner. They could not interact with other monkeys even when they were older.

2. Infant monkeys reared with surrogate mothers – either bare wire mothers or wire mothers covered in soft terry towelling cloth. A feeding bottle was attached to either the wire or the cloth mother.

When the monkeys had a choice of which to feed from they chose the “cloth” mother and spent more time clinging to her than to the wire mother. This also applied to infants only fed from a wire mesh mother. The infant would only go to this 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. This surrogate was more effective in decreasing the youngsters fear. The infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present.

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.

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.

Harlow’s work has been critised. His experiments have been seen as unnecessarily cruel (ethics) and of limited value in attempting to understand the effects of deprivation on human infants. However one psychologist who was strongly influenced by his research was John Bowlby.