Attachment

Definition of Attachment

Maccoby (1980) defines attachment as ‘a relatively enduring emotional tie to a specific other person’.

Stages in the development of attachments

Bowlby (1969) described five stages in the development of attachments:

1. In the first few months of life the infant is generally socially responsive to others but does not show a particular preferences.
2. At about 5 to 7 months, the infant starts to show preference for certain individuals, e.g. smiling more at the regular caregiver.
3. At about 7 to 9 months, the infant tries to stay close to the caregiver and will usually be upset if separated. Fear of strangers also appears.
4. At about 2 to 3 years of age, the child will be able to understand and tolerate separation a little better especially if it is explained and understood.
5. Attachment will gradually lessen, as the child grows older. By school age quite long periods of separation will be possible with out bad effects. In teenage years and adulthood new attachments will form until eventually the individual becomes an attachment figure for their own children.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud

Feeding is very important. If feeding is happy and satisfying experience, the infant will become securely, emotionally attached to the satisfying breast and, eventually, to the mother herself.

Learning Theory

Feeding is reinforcing because it reduces unpleasant hunger and is associated with other rewarding experiences. With time, the mother becomes a reinforcer because she is regularly associated with the arrival of food. The infant becomes attached to her because she meets its needs. Ethological Theory

Bowlby (1958) thought that attachment resulted from instinctive responses which were necessary for survival. Attachment is a two-way process which is most likely to happen during a sensitive period in the infant’s first months of life. Bowlby talked of monotropy by which he meant that the infant shows a preference for one attachment figure (usually the mother).

Types of Attachment

Ainsworth (1978) used a method to test the strength and security of attachment called the strange situation.

1. Type A. Anxious-avoidant, 15% of the sample. These infants seemed to be indifferent to the mother. They were not affected by their mothers’ presence or absence.
2. Type B. Securely attached, 70% of the sample. These infants liked to stay close to the mother when playing. They were distressed when she left but were quickly comforted when she returned.
3. Type C, Anxious-resistant, 15% of the sample. These infants seem to have mixed feeling towards the mother. They sought contact with her and then resisted it.

Cross cultural studies

Country	Type A	Type C
German	40-50%
Japanese		35%

Maternal Deprivation hypothesis

Bowlby (1953) said

'Mother love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health’.

He went on to claim that it was essential to have: ‘ warm, intimate, continuous relationship with the mother…or permanent mother substitute’.

What had Bowlby based his views on?

Short-term problems. Bowlby noted a sequence of protest, despair and detachment in children following separation from an attachment figure.

Robertson and Robertson (1967) films of the distress of young children in brief separation supported this idea.

Animal studies.

Harlow and Harlow (1958)

Carried out a series of studies in which rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers soon after birth and reared in isolation.

The monkeys had surrogate mothers to feed from.

When the isolated monkeys were allowed contact with normal monkeys they showed serious behaviour problems.

Juvenile delinquency.

In 1946 Bowlby studied the family histories of 44 juvenile thieves.

He found that seventeen of them had been separated from their mothers for six months or more before their fifth birthday.

He compared them with 44 adolescents who had emotional problems but were not thieves. Of the 17 ‘thieves’ Bowlby noted that 14 showed affectionless psychopathy. They seemed to have no feelings of affection, warmth or concern for anyone.

Bowlby concluded that these adolescent problems linked directly to early experience of separation.

Evaluation

Short-term Problems

The Robertsons found that children could overcome the problems of brief separation if they were cared for in a familiar environment by familiar people who made an effort to keep contact with the absent parent.

Juvenile delinquency

Rutter (1981) questioned the link between maternal separation and delinquency suggested by Bowlby.

In his study of 9 – 12-year-old boys on the Isle of Wight, he found that it was not necessarily separation that caused the problems. Instead he found a positive correlation between anti-social behaviour in these boys and the extent to which there was a stressful family atmosphere in their early years.

Privation Koluchova (1972)

Koluchova studied Czechoslovakian twin boys. The boys’ mother died when they were born in 1960. They spent the first months of life in and institution and progressed well.

From the age of 18 months the twins then lived with their father and stepmother who severely neglected them. The boys were isolated from outside contact and lived in an unheated room or, as punishment, in a cellar.

When they were discovered, aged 7years, they were severely physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually retarded. At 8 years old they were put into the foster care of two sisters.

They began to attend a special school but by the age of 14 years had progressed to a normal school and had IQs within the normal range.