Chapter organisation:
- Intro to attachment
- Biological bases of attachment
- Attachment system & other behavioural systems
- Attachment bonds and attachment figures
Chapter 1: introduction to attachment
Chapter organisation
1. Intro
2. Biological bases of attachment
3. Attachment system & other behavioural systems
4. Attachment bonds and attachment figures
Bowlby: founding father of attachment
- Was convinced that major disruptions in mother-child relationships were precursors of later
psychopathology
- Early mother-child relationships are critical for the child, and also its later development
- Angry protest → Children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers, even when
cared for by others
Early theories of attachment
- Psychoanalytic and social learning theorists (Freud)→ Pleasure experienced from hunger drive being
satisfied becomes associated with mother
- Imprinting (Lorenz)→ infant geese became attached to parents, even to objects, that did not feed them
- Harlow monkey experiments → infant monkeys preferred a cloth-covered mother providing comfort over
the wire mother that provided food. Showed that it's not just for food that they form attachments
- Systematic observations (Ainsworth, Schaffer & Emerson) → infants also become attached to people who
did not feed them
Bowlby’s attachment theory - “the nature of the child’s tie to his mother”
- Combining different fields, Bowlby said that the infant’s tie to mother originally emerged as a result of
evolutionary pressures
- Not result from a learning process, but rather biologically through natural selection
- The first basic blueprint of attachment theory
Ainsworth: assessment tool
- Conducted two pioneering naturalistic observation studies of mothers and infants
- She applied ecological principles of attachment theory as framework
- “The strange situation” assessment tool → triggered empirical study of individual differences in
attachment quality
Biological bases of attachment behaviour & evolution link
- Attachment behaviour → outcome of increasing proximity of the child to the attachment figure (usually
mom). Examples include smiling, vocalising, crying
- Bowlby
- 1. Genetic selection favores attachment behaviours
- 2. Increases mother child proximity
- 3. More protection
- 4. Survival advantage
- Infants biologically predisposed to stay close to mother were less likely to be killed by predators,
particularly during times of distress/threat
- Hence, a biological function of attachment behaviour, namely protection
- Attachment is viewed as healthy throughout lifespan, not just a sign of immaturity that needs to be
outgrown. It allows for feeding, learning about environment, regulation, social interaction
Attachment behavioural system
- Behavioural system → species-specific system of behaviours that lead to a certain predictable outcome, at
least one of which contributes to survival and reproductive fitness
- In contrast to what Freud would view (secondary drive theories), attachment:
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