Bowlby's Theory.

Who was he?

  • He worked as a psychiatrist in London, treating emotionally disturbed children.
  • He observed that a number of the children he treated had experienced early separation from their families.
  • This led him to create the THEORY IF MATERNAL DEPRIVATION 1951.
  • It claimed that children deprived of an early, strong attachment, may suffer permanent long-term emotional maladjustment.
  • He looked at the work of Lorenz and Harlow for ideas and proposed an evolutionary explanation...

How attachments are formed.

INNATE

MONOTROPY

SOCIAL RELEASERS

SECURE BASE

CRITIAL PERIOD

INTERNAL WORKING MODEL

Attachment serves as an important survival function and we are born with a drive to survive. Infants who do not form an attachment within the first few months are unlikely to survive.

Infants form one special emotional bond with their primary attachment figure.

Babies are born with particular features that elicit caregiving behaviours e.g. smiling, having a cute ‘babyface’.

Having a secure base, a child will have the confidence to explore their surroundings knowing that they will always be safe.


A time when attachments should form an attachment-between 3-6 months (Bowlby later acknowledged that it can be up to three years)

Forming an infant attachment gives us a ‘template’ for all future relationships-we learn to trust and care for others.
This forms an internal working model for all later attachments.
This is a ‘working’ model as it can change and develop over time, depending of how the person’s relationships change


CONTITNUITY HYPOTHESIS

The primary caregiver provides the foundations for child’s future relationships.

Evaluation.

Adaptable?

  • Attachment is clearly very important for emotional development but not necessarily survival.
  • Bowlby states that attachment develops after three months but this is very late for a survival mechanism to start.
  • Survival mechanisms should begin from birth ie: monkeys for birth cling to their mother's fur.

Validity of monotropy challenged.

  • The concept of monotropy lacks validity. Schaffer and Emerson found that most babies attach to one person at first.
  • However, thy found that this first attachment does not appear to have a particularly strong influence on later behaviour.
  • Meaning, Bowlby may be wrong that there is a unique quality and importance to the child's primary attachment.

Sensitive rather than critical.

  • Bowlby believed that in the critical period if attachments were not made then it was impossible for attachments to be made in later life.
  • Nevertheless, Rutter et al found that it is not impossible.
  • Thus, psychologists prefer to call this period a sensitive period rather than critical to reflect the fact that this development window is one where children are maximally receptive to forming attachments.

Internal Working Model.

However....

  • Prior and Glaser (2006) concluded that a hierarchical model of attachment, which places emphasis on one central person ‘higher; than others, is more likely than multiple attachments
  • The central person has special significance and contributes to healthy emotional development.
  • This support’s Bowlby’s concept of ‘monotherapy’ and the idea that one special attachment plays a significant role in emotional development.
  • Heidi Bailey et al 2007 assessed attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their one-year-olds. The researchers measured the mothers' attachment to their own primary figure.
  • They found that mothers with poor attachments to their primary figure have poor attachments with their child.
  • This supports Bowlby's idea that mothers' ability to form attachments to their babies is influenced by their internal working model

However,

Kornienko argues that there ate other important influences on social development. ie: Genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect behaviour in both babies and mother.

  • This means Bowlby may have overstated the important of IWM in social behaviour and parenting at the expense of other factors.

Critical period for attachment formation

Most developmental processes take place during a critical period. This is a time frame or window of opportunity in which development of a behaviour or characteristic occurs. If the behaviour does not happen during the critical period then it may well not develop at all. Bowlby argued that there is a critical period between the ages of birth and 2.5 years (0-30 months) in which conditions must be right for an attachment to form, and if it does not form in this time then it is not possible to develop thereafter.

Rutter et al (1998) studied Romanian orphans who had been placed in orphanages with minimal adult contact. When these children were adopted by US and UK families in their first year of life, they were able to form strong and stable attachments with their adopted parents. Bowlby’s theory argues that after 2.5 years of age the infants would not be able to form an attachment, however when older infants were also adopted by US and UK families they made slower progress than their younger counterparts, but they did develop attachments. This shows that attachments can be formed outside the critical period, but that they develop much more slowly, and that the idea of a critical period outside of which an attachment cannot be formed should be modified to a sensitive period during which attachments form more easily.

Monotropy.

Bowlby argues that infants form a single special attachment with one primary attachment figure, usually the mother. This is called monotropy (moving towards one). Other attachments may develop in a hierarchy below this. An infant may therefore have a primary monotropy attachment to its mother, and below her the hierarchy of attachments my include its father, siblings, grandparents, etc.

The idea of monotropy and hierarchy is supported by research into attachments formed by the Efe tribe of Congo. Efe women share the care of infants in the tribe and take turns to breast feed them, however the infants return to their natural mother at night and form a stable bond with the mother.

Hazan and Shaver (1987) researched the link between infant or childhood attachment types and adult relationships. They found that securely attached children, who had secure and close relationships with their parents, developed secure, stable and loving relationships with their adult partners. Insecure-avoidant children, who had cold and rejecting mothers, developed insecure adult relationships with high levels of jealousy and fear of rejection. This shows that childhood attachment styles correlate strongly with adult relationship styles, however the research is based on a self-report questionnaire with retrospective questions that try to explore childhood attachments through the participant’s own (biased) childhood memories. Check your romantic attachment style on our games and tests page.

Fathers?

Another criticism of Bowlby's theory is that he underestimated the role of fathers. He believed they were only there to give financial help to mothers so they could stay at home. This is a problem in modern day because mothers go to work and have their own income. Also, some children only have a father because women die in childbirth. Fathers are important to young boys because they have to identify with the same sex parent.

That attachment was an innate system that gives a survival advantage. So, attachment, like imprinting, evolved as a mechanism to keep young animals safe by ensuring they stay close to adult caregivers.