Attachment Theory

In this blog entry, I will talk mainly about how Bowlby’s attachment theory emerges and the importance of the theory from the perspective of infants.

After Bowlby’s first empirical study about maternal deprivation and separation, he found that separation has clear-cut and significant effect on child and parent-child relationship so that it will be easy for him to document effects of separation on the relationship. Then, he decided to focus on attachment in order to analyze parent-child relationship. Considering the importance of the theory, Bowlby found that in order to grow up mentally healthy, “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (Bowlby, 1951, cited in Bretherton, 1992).  That is, an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to be able to occur normally. Bowlby views attachment as “proximity to an attachment figure as a predictable outcome and whose evolutionary function is protection of the infant from danger, insisting that attachment has its own motivation and is in no way derived from systems subserving mating and feeding” (Bretherton, 1992). In other words, it can be said that attachment is necessary for an infant to live in a healthy way since it enables him/her to develop socially and emotionally.

When we consider humans, the necessity of attachment can be understood better. In many species other than humans, young animals, for example, move closer to adults or follow them for a long time. They can walk after birth immediately. Their need for adults is less than human infants’ need for adults. Human infants cannot walk or follow their adults. They even cannot cling to these adults for maintaining contact, as well as not talk and say their need at that moment. They can only send signals by crying or facial expressions etc. to their adults. Hence, they need attachment. If it is not provided to an infant, then he/she will have trouble in development process and in the future he/she will probably harm people around him/her or even the society. For example, during first six months if there are no consistent caretaker, the infant will not form an attachment and he/she will cause many problems in the future for himself/herself and the society. I think that one of the most important reasons for having so many robbers, fighters, liars etc. in the society is due to the lack of attachment when these people are infants. If they got attachment from caregivers, then they would learn and internalize the concepts of love, toleration, and helpfulness.

REFERENCES

1-      Bretherton, I. (1992). The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainstworth. Developmental Psychology Journal, 28, 759-775