Attachment Theory

 Background
• John Bowlby observed orphaned infants after World War II (1940s)
– Concluded that early social attachment between an infant and a caretaker is essential for
normal social development
– Determined that babies and mothers have an innate tendency to form an attachment
• Mary Ainsworth continued Bowlby’s research
– Proposed that infants’ attachment to a caregiver differs in the degree of security in the
attachment
– Differences in security of attachment influence personality and social relationships in
infancy and beyond

 Attachment Theory
 Infants need a “secure base” (i.e. are able to trust) their primary caregiver
 A Secure Attachment leads to subsequent healthy development
 An Insecure Attachment leads to unhealthy development
 Attachment style affects relationships throughout life

 Attachment - Definition
• Attachment as an evolutionary imperative. It represents:
• “a child’s biological tie or bond to her primary caregivers, usually her parents. It is a
biological system developed through evolution to protect the child, thus ensuring the
likelihood she will grow into an adult and reproduce, thereby guaranteeing gene survival.”
(Newton, 2008, p. 9).
• Attachment works on the premise that we are ‘hard wired’ to seek out relationships with others
that promote our physical and internal/psychological sense of security.
• Attachment tells us about the child’s primary relationships and how it influences their
development (eg social, emotional, cognitive).

 Attachment Theory - Characteristics

• Attachment theory has its origins with John Bowlby.
• Four key characteristics of attachment:
• (1) proximity maintenance (wanting to be physically near to the persons we are closest to);
• (2) safe haven (returning to attachment figure when feeling frightened or sense of threat
(perceived or real));
• (3) secure base (the attachment figure represents a secure base from which the child can
explore their environment and other relationships;
• (4) separation distress (anxiety when attachment figure is absent).

 Attachment Theory – Monotropic View

• Bowlby’s concept of ‘monotropic’ attachment (ie preferred atttachment figure (usually the mother)
above all others).
• This view limited? Especially in current social and familial context – eg while mothers are still the
primary caregiver for most children, infants/young children can have multiple ‘key’ caregivers (eg
both parents being very involved in the care; grandparent providing part-time care while both
parents work; childcare environments; etc).
• Rutter (1995) also questions this monotropic view.
 Attachment Theory – Key Concepts
• Secure base: A responsive caregiver provides security to explore the environment
– If the caregiver’s responses to the child’s needs are appropriate, then the child will feel
confident to explore a strange environment, occasionally returning to the caregiver for
confirmation
– If the caregiver’s responses to the child are inappropriate, the child becomes insecure and
are less likely to use the caregiver as a base for exploring a strange environment
• Caregiver
– Typically the infant’s mother
– May include others who respond to an infant’s needs
• Attachment behaviour (observable) is activated in response to fear or separation from attachment
figure and when infant/child perceives real or imagined threat exhausts their capacity to cope
(Taylor, 2012).
• Attachment continuum – child moves between proximity seeking and exploration.

 Attachment Styles
 Attachment ‘styles’ – emerged from work of Mary Ainsworth and others following extensive
observation and research of separation and reunion behaviours of infants ~1-2 years old.
 Technique used to identify these styles was called ‘The Strange Situation

 Methodology
• Strange Situation: Experimental task for infants
– Infant, parent, and experimenter go into a laboratory room
– Eight episodes of about three minutes apiece are used to determine the security of the
infant’s attachment to the parent
• Secure Attachment: Explore environment with parent, distressed when parent leaves, delighted
when parent returns
• Insecure Attachment
– Resistant: Clings to parent, cries when the parent leaves, angry when returns
– Avoidant: Does not care if mother leaves and ignores the parent upon return
 Strange Situation
(show video)

• Secure attachment:
• develops from a relationship with primary caregiver(s) which provides a range of important
characteristics/features such as sensitivity and responsiveness, including attunement,
availability, understanding, warmth, and consistency (at least most of the time);
• provides an opportunity for the child to gradually and increasingly explore their world
beyond the primary relationship(s) to other relationships and experiences, knowing they
can return when needed (during moments of feeling fearful/insecure again).
• Secure attachment experience is eventually internalised (or taken into their minds as a mental
representation), allowing child to draw on this internal sense of felt security without the actual
presence of the caregiver. Refer to this as ‘internal working models’.

 INTERNAL WORKING MODELS

 Mental representation of the self, the other and their relations
 Formed from generalised representations of events
  Include feelings, beliefs, expectations, behavioural strategies and rules for directing attention,
interpreting information on and organizing memory
 Models affect future relationships and patterns

 Attachment Styles
• Attachment styles identified by Mary Ainsworth:
• Secure (62-66% of children)
• Insecure
• Anxious-avoidant (15-22% of children)
• Anxious-ambivalent (9-12% of children)
• Disorganised (category identified by other researchers, 15% of children) – Louise to
focus more on this one
• (See following slide for descriptions of secure, avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles –
excerpt from Karen, 1994, p. 444-445)

 Attachment Styles
• Securely Attached: Belief that the caregiver will protect and provide for them
– Explores the environment with the parent
– Might protest separation from parent but smiles more often when the parent is present
– Shows pleasure at reunion with parent
– 65% of middle-class American infants
• Insecure-Avoidant: Belief that the caregiver will not protect or provide. The caregiver is not a safe
haven in stressful circumstances
– Does not protest at parent’s departure
– Responds the same to the stranger and the parent, or more positively to the stranger
– Avoid parent upon return
– 20% of middle-class American infants

 Attachment Styles
• Insecure-Resistant: Uncertainty about whether the parent will protect or provide safety in stressful
circumstances
– Remain close to parent. Refuse to explore the new environment
– Distressed at separation of parent
– Mixture of approach and avoidance when reunited
– 10% of middle-class American infants
• Disorganized or Disoriented: No consistent way of dealing with the stress
– Exhibits contradictory behavior at the strange situation
– Typical attachment style when the infant is abused or neglected
– Less than 5% of middle-class American infants

 The Development of Attachment

 Attachment Styles
• Attachment depends on:
– Caregiver’s sensitivity to the infant’s needs
• Children are less likely to develop a secure attachment if they are raised in an
orphanage
• Parents living in poverty tend to provide less sensitive environments
 • Sensitivity to infants can be taught to mothers, that then leads to a higher
probability of secure attachment (Van den Boom, 1994)
– Family stress
• Infants exposed to verbally aggressive fighting among their parents form more
insecure attachments

 Attachment Styles
 Attachment depends on:
 Parental psychopathology
 Depressed mothers tend to have lower quality interactions with their infants
 Infant’s temperament
 If an infant is irritable and the mother has no social support, then the child is
more likely to develop an insecure attachment

 Stability of Attachment Styles Across Time

 Securely attached infants in stable middle-class American families tend to remain securely
attached through two years of age
 Stressful life events may cause the attachment style to change
 Attachment styles are not as stable with dysfunctional families
 Once developed, attachment styles remain relatively stable across time (without changes in
caregiving environment that is).
 The younger the infant, the more malleable the attachment style.

 Attachment Styles and Subsequent Development

• Attachment Theory predicts that the quality of the attachment predicts subsequent development
– Longitudinal study found that securely attached infants were more competent at age-
appropriate tasks throughout adolescence (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005)

 Attachment Styles and Subsequent Development

• An infant’s attachment style to a caregiver predicts:
– Effective social functioning during childhood and adolescence
– Sociability through early, middle, and late adulthood
– Self-esteem
– School grades
– Teenage sexual activity
– Quality of attachment to their own children
– Attitudes toward their own children

 Cultural Variations in Attachment Styles

• The same four types of attachments have been found in various cultures, but the proportion of
children in each category differ by culture
– Avoidant attachments are rare in cultures where the child is seldom apart from the mother
• Little research examines the causes and effects of secure attachments in non-Western cultures
 Cross Cultural Studies
 In summary, the distribution of secure attachment classification in different countries shows a
striking similarity.
 U.S. 67%
 Western Europe, 66%
 Africa 57-69%
 China, 68%
 Japan, 61-68%

 Cross Cultural Studies

 The distribution of types of insecure (avoidant and resistant) and disorganized attachment
classifications, if measured, are less consistent. Differences have been attributed to the over-
riding expression of a cultural value, such as dependency or independence, and to differences
in perceived stress generated by the strange situation methods between mother-infant dyads
with different cultural experiences.

 Adult Attachment and Romantic Relationships

 Hazan and Shaver (1987) were two of the first researchers to explore Bowlby's ideas in the
context of romantic relationships. According to Hazan and Shaver, the emotional bond that
develops between adult romantic partners is partly a function of the same motivational system-
-the attachment behavioral system--that gives rise to the emotional bond between infants and
their caregivers. Relationship between infants and caregivers and the relationship between
adult romantic partners share the following features:
 both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive
 both engage in close, intimate, bodily contact
 both feel insecure when the other is inaccessible
 both share discoveries with one another
 both play with one another's facial features and exhibit a mutual fascination and
preoccupation with one another
 both engage in "baby talk"

 Adult Attachment Styles

1. I am afraid that I will lose my partner’s love.
2. I often worry that my partner will not want to stay with me.
3. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me.
4. I worry that romantic partners won’t care about me as much as I care about them.
5. I often wish that my partner’s feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for him or her.
6. I worry a lot about my relationships.
7. When my partner is out of sight, I worry that he or she might become interested in someone else.
 Adult Attachment Styles
1. I prefer not to show a partner how I feel deep down.
2. I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with my partner. (R)
3. I find it difficult to allow myself to depend on romantic partners.
4. I am very comfortable being close to romantic partners. (R)
5. I do not feel comfortable opening up to romantic partners.
6. I prefer not to be too close to romantic partners.
7. I get uncomfortable when a romantic partner wants to be very close.
 Comparing Developmental Theories
 Attachment Theory – Association Between Parenting Styles and Different Attachment Styles
 Parenting styles associated with anxious-avoidant attachment (Newton, 2008):
 limited care of infant’s needs;
 frequent rejection of infant’s need for proximity and sensitive care;
 tendency to encourage greater autonomy than is healthy or developmentally appropriate
for the child.
 These children often present with a false sense of independence and tend not to seek parents out
for comfort or safety.
 Attachment Theory – Association Between Parenting Styles and Different Attachment Styles
 Parenting styles associated with anxious-ambivalent attachment (Newton, 2008):
 inconsistent care;
 heightened focus and response to fearfulness in infant which exacerbates the infant’s fear;
 discourages exploration (due to parental anxiety).
 These children often give mixed messages to the parent – simultaneously hostile and dependent
toward parent.
 They are hypervigilant to possibility of separation from attachment figure, and seek to be
proximally close even at times seemingly not necessary (eg clingy behaviour) due to uncertainty
about the parents’ ongoing availability.

 Attachment Theory – Limitation of Categories

 While categories are important, need to keep in mind that infants/children can exhibit different
styles under different circumstances or with different caregiver(s).
 What is more relevant to attachment ‘style’, is knowing from your assessment (and formulation)
how their attachment style manifests, or plays out, in the child’s relationships with others

 Mother-Infant Attachment Relationship Studies

 Renken, Egeland, Marvinney, Mangelsdorf, and Sroufe (1989) found that insecure attachments
between mother and infant predict childhood behavior problems in a sample from low-income
and predominantly single-parent households.
 D. S. Shaw et al. (1995) found that insecure attachment, particularly disorganized attachment,
predicted CBCL aggression scores at age 5.
 Bates, Bayles, Bennett, Ridge, and Brown (1991) failed to establish insecure attachment as a
predictor of externalizing problems in a predominantly middle-class, two-parent sample
followed from infancy into elementary school.
 Mother-Infant Attachment Relationship Studies
 Greenberg, Spelz, and Deklyen (1993) have argued that secure attachment is a protective factor
for infants of low-income, highly stressed mothers but is less crucial to antisocial development
in middle-class families.
 Support for the interaction between parent-infant warmth and a biological factor comes from
Raine, Brennan, and Mednick (1997), who found that Danish males with a history of birth
complications and early rejection by the mother (unwanted pregnancy, attempt to abort fetus,
and public institutional care of the infant) were at high risk for violent crime by age 19. Of
children who had both risk factors, 47% became violent, compared to 20% of those who had
just one factor. Thus, the strength of the mother- child bond protected children from later
violence, but only for high biological-risk children.
 Parent-Child Attachment Relationship
 A basic premise of attachment theory is that the early mother-infant relationship lays the
groundwork for children’s understanding of, and participation in, subsequent extrafamilial
relationships.
 And, since the quality of attachment relationships with the mother may vary, subsequent social
success and relationships with peers is expected to vary as well.
 Parent-Child Attachment Relationship
 Studies of attachment and peer relationships have demonstrated that:
 Securely attached infants are more likely than their insecure counterparts to demonstrate
socially competent behaviors amongst peers during the toddler, preschool, and elementary
school periods.
 Insecure babies, those classified as avoidant, later exhibit more hostility, anger, and aggressive
behavior in preschool settings than their secure counterparts.
 Insecure-ambivalent infants are more easily frustrated, and socially inhibited at 2 years than
their secure age-mates.
 Disorganized/disoriented attachment status in infancy predicts the subsequent display of
aggression amongst preschool and elementary school peers derives from several sources.
 Parent-Child Attachment Relationship
 Secure and insecure attachments, as assessed in early and middle childhood, as well as in early
adolescence are associated with and predictive of adaptive and maladaptive social behaviors
respectively.
 Children who experience a secure relationship with their mothers (and fathers) have been
found to be more sociable and competent than their insecure counterparts, while insecure
children exhibit more aggression and withdrawal (Allen, Moore, Kuperminc, & Bell, 1998; Rose-
Krasnor, Rubin, Booth, & Coplan, 1996).

 PARENTAL REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING

 Capacity to understand own and child's behaviour in terms of underlying mental states
 Basis of parents ability to hold the infants affective experience in mind
 Gives meaning to the child’s affective experience and re-presents it to the child in a regulated
fashion
 PARENTAL REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING
 RF is the basis of parental access to their own emotions and memories of their own early
attachment experiences
 Mediates the reworking of parents early relationships in the transition to parenthood and
representation of the child
 Impacts on interactive and parenting behaviours

 THINKING ABOUT THE BABY

 Crucial in establishment of attachment relationship and emotionally attuned early interaction
 Gives infant experience of being validated and contained and is the beginning of self
development
 Attachment Security and Friendship
 If quality of the attachment relationship is associated with, and predictive of, patterns of social
interaction = Proposal: there is a relation between attachment status and the child’s standing in
the peer group.
 In a meta-analysis of literature on links between attachment and peer acceptance, Schneider,
Atkinson, and Tardif (2001) found a small-to-moderate effect size between these domains. They
found a larger effect size linking attachment security with friendship than with peer
relationships more generally.
 Attachment Security and Friendship
 Booth, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, and Burgess (2004), argue that there is an even more compelling
rationale for the link between attachment security and friendship.
 The trust and intimacy characterizing secure child-parent relationships should produce an
internalized model of relationship expectations that affects the quality of relationships with
friends. In support, secure parent-child attachment in late childhood and early adolescence is
associated positively with positive qualities of children’s close peer relationships (Lieberman,
Doyle, & Markiewicz, 1999).
 How does Attachment Theory Help Us Understand Our Practice / Treatment?
 Provides a framework for understanding a child’s relationships with attachment figures, and how
these relationships influence other relationships in their lives, and their behaviour, self-concept,
etc.
 Helps us understand the child’s relationship with us as the therapist, and others in their life who
aren’t in their immediate caregiving system (eg teachers or peers at school; their dance teacher;
meeting new people).
 However, attachment is only part of an assessment (Ax) with an infant/child, it’s part of our
understanding of a child’s difficulties.

 Critique of Attachment Theory

• Strengths
– Explains development in social relationships
– Enables predictions about subsequent social relationships
– Provides information about specific interventions that can improve social functioning
• Weaknesses
– Only comparative cross-cultural research has been conducted
– Does not well predict behavior in cultures where children have more than one primary
caregiver
 Implications of Attachment Theory for Education
• Parents need to be sensitive to their infants’ needs.
• Parents need to provide a stable home environment for their children
 Arietta Slade refers to reflective function with regard to parenting as:
 “A mother’s capacity to reflect upon and understand her child’s internal experience is what
accounts for the relation between attachment status and her child’s sense of security and
safety.”
• If children are not functioning well in school, the first problem to investigate is their home life.
• Any caring, stable adult can provide a secure attachment for a needy child