Attachment theory

Attachment theory is a theory (or group of theories) about the psychological concept of attachment: the tendency to seek closeness to another person and feel secure when that person is present. Attachment theory has its origins in the observation of and experiments with animals. Much of the early research on attachment in humans was done by John Bowlby and his associates.

Attachment theory assumes that humans are social beings; they do not just use other people to satisfy their drives. In this way, attachment theory is similar to object relations theory.

In a famous series of experiments on infant monkeys, Harlow and Harlow (1969) demonstrated that attachment is not a simple reaction to internal drives such as hunger. In these experiments, young monkeys were separated from their mother shortly after birth. After that, they were offered two dolls which were thought of as surrogates to the mother. The first doll had a body of wire mesh. The second doll had a body of terry cloth and foam rubber. Both of these dolls could be made a source of food by attaching a milk bottle to its chest. The objective of the experiment was to see what would determine to which doll the monkey would cling: the soft contact of the cloth or the source of food. It turned out that the monkeys would cling to the soft-clothed doll, irrespective of whether it provided food. The monkeys also explored more when the soft-cloth doll was near. Apparently, the doll provided them with a sense of security. However, the passive doll was not an adequate alternative for a real mother. Infant monkeys which were raised without contact with other monkeys showed abnormal behavior in social situations. They were either very fearful of other monkeys or responded with unprovoked aggression when they encountered other monkeys. They also showed abnormal sexual responses. Female monkeys who were raised in isolation often neglected or abused their infants. This abnormal behaviour is thought to demonstrate that a bond with the mother is necessary for further social development.

Attachment of children to caregivers

Attachment theory led not only to increased attention to attachments as a psychosocial process, it also led to a new understanding of child development. Freudian theory suggested that as libidinal drives fixed on different objects, former attachments would be broken; failure to break an attachment effectively would constitute a sort of trauma that could lead to later mental illness. Attachment theory, however, suggested that growing children did not break former attachments, but rather (1) learned to become more active (or sovereign) within previously established attachments, and (2) added new attachments, which did not necessarily require a break with (and are not necessarily substitutes for) previous attachments.

The Strange Situation

Mary Ainsworth is a developmental psychologist who devised a procedure called The Strange Situation, to observe attachment relationships between a human caregiver and child. In this procedure the child is observed playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives. The situation varies in stressfulness and the child's responses are observed. The child experiences the following situations:

1.Mother and baby enter room.

2.Mother sits quietly on a chair, responding if the infant seeks attention.

3.A stranger enters, talks to the mother then gradually approaches infant with a toy. The mother leaves the room.

4.The stranger leaves the infant playing unless he/she is inactive and then tries to interest the infant in toys. If the infant becomes distressed this episode is ended.

5.Mother enters and waits to see how the infant greets her. The stranger leaves quietly and the mother waits until the baby settles, and then she leaves again.

6.The infant is alone. This episode is curtailed if the infant appears to be distressed.

7.The stranger comes back and repeats episode 3.

8.The mother returns and the stranger goes. Reunion behaviour is noted and then the situation is ended.

Two aspects of the child's behaviour are observed:

• The amount of exploration (e.g. playing with new toys) the child engages in throughout, and
• The child's reactions to the departure and return of its caregiver.

Attachment styles

On the basis of their behaviours, the children can be categorized into three groups. Each of these groups reflects a different kind of attachment relationship with the mother. (It should be noted that Bowlby believed that mothers were the primary attachment figure in children's lives, but subsequent research has confirmed that children form attachments to both their mothers and their fathers. Bowlby, like many of his colleagues at the time, infused the gender norms of the day into otherwise "unbiased" scientific research.)

Modern studies use a variety of standardized interviews, questionnaires, and tests to identify attachment styles. The most commonly used procedures for children are the Strange Situation Protocol and various narrative approaches and structured observational methods. A frequently used method of assessing attachment styles in adults is the Adult Attachment Interview developed by Mary Main and Erik Hesse. Attachment styles in adults can also be assessed using a questionnaire developed by Shaver and colleagues. All of these methods can be used to classify people into the classic attachment styles described below.

Readers curious about their own attachment style can take the questionnaire developed by Shaver and colleagues at http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl.

Secure attachment

A child who is securely attached to its mother will explore freely while the mother is present, will engage with strangers, will be visibly upset when the mother departs, and happy to see the mother return.

Securely attached children are best able to explore when they have the knowledge of a secure base to return to in times of need (also known as "rapprochement", meaning in French "bring together"). When assistance is given, this bolsters the sense of security and also, assuming the mother's assistance is helpful, educates the child in how to cope with the same problem in the future. Therefore, secure attachment can be seen as the most adaptive attachment style. According to some psychological researchers, a child becomes securely attached when the mother is available and able to meet the needs of the child in a responsive and appropriate manner. Others have pointed out that there are also other determinants of the child's attachment, and that behavior of the parent may in turn be influenced by the child's behavior.

Anxious-ambivalent insecure attachment

A child with an anxious-resistant attachment style is anxious of exploration and of strangers, even when the mother is present. When the mother departs, the child is extremely distressed. The child will be ambivalent when she returns - seeking to remain close to the mother but resentful, and also resistant when the mother initiates attention.

According to some psychological researchers, this style develops from a mothering style which is engaged but on the mother's own terms. That is, sometimes the child's needs are ignored until some other activity is completed and that attention is sometimes given to the child more through the needs of the parent than from the child's initiation.

Anxious-avoidant insecure attachment

A child with an anxious-avoidant attachment style will avoid or ignore the mother - showing little emotion when the mother departs or returns. The child will not explore very much regardless of who is there. Strangers will not be treated much differently from the mother. There is not much emotional range displayed regardless of who is in the room or if it is empty.

This style of attachment develops from a mothering style which is more disengaged. The child's needs are frequently not met and the child comes to believe that communication of needs has no influence on the mother.

Disorganized attachment

A fourth category termed disorganized attachment is actually the lack of a coherent style or pattern for coping. While ambivalent and avoidant styles are not totally effective, they are strategies for dealing with the world. Children with disorganized attachment experienced their caregivers as both frightened and frightening. Human interactions are experienced as erratic, thus children cannot form a coherent interactive template. If the child uses the caregiver as a mirror to understand the self, the disorganized child is looking into a mirror broken into a thousand pieces. It is more severe than learned helplessness as it is the model of the self rather than of a situation.

Attachment in adult romantic relationships

Building on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, Phillip Shaver, Cindy Hazan, and other adult attachment researchers have detected similar patterns of behavior in adult relations with romantic partners and spouses. Securely attached people are able to place trust in their partner which, in turn, means they can confidently spend time apart. People with an anxious ambivalent attachment style may have difficulties because their way of behaving in relationships can be seen as needy or clingy by their partner. They are prone to worry about whether their partner loves them or whether they are valued by their partner. People with an avoidant attachment style are uncomfortable being close to others. They have difficulties in trusting other people and do not like to depend on others.

Such patterns are believed to be working models that develop in infancy, but can be modified as people enter into new relationships.

Measures of Attachment in Adults

Attachment in adults can be measured using either self-report questionnaires or structured interviews. Shaver and Fraley offer a summary of several different adult attachment measures available online at http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~rcfraley/measures/measures.html.

In their pioneering paper on attachment in adults, Hazen and Shaver developed a questionnaire aimed at classifying adults into the three attachment styles reported by Mary Ainsworth in children. Two important developments have since occurred. First, Bartholomew has effectively argued for a fourth style of attachment. The avoidant style of attachment in children is divided into two kinds of avoidant styles of attachment in adults. Second, analysis of the Shaver attachment questionnaire has shown that the questionnaire items measure two dimensions of attachment: anxiety and avoidance. Many studies now use scores on the anxiety and avoidance scales, rather than classifications of attachment style, for statistical analysis. However, different patterns of anxiety and avoidance can be used to classify people into the four adult attachment styles.

The Shaver attachment questionnaire has been validated across 62 cultures. The validation study found a number of trends in attachment across the cultures.

Attachment Styles in Adults

Hazan and Shaver initially propsed three styles of adult attachment. They characterized each style with a brief description:

• Secure - "I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don't worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me."
• Avoidant - "I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being."
• Anxious-Ambivalent - "I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away."

These three styles of attachment correspond directly to the three style of attachment Ainsworth originally identified in children.

Bartholomew subsequently theorized that the avoidant style of attachment contained two distinct forms of avoidance: fearful avoidance and dismissing avoidance. People adopt a fearful avoidant attachment style in an attempt to avoid being hurt or rejected by partners. People adopt a dismissing avoidant attachment style to defend a sense of self-reliance and independence. Bartholomew thus proposed four styles of adult attachment including secure, anxious, fearful-avoidant, and dismissing-avoidant.

Bartholomew also related the four styles of attachment to the two dimensions of anxiety and avoidance measured by the Shaver attachment questionnaire. The secure attachment style is associated with low anxiety and low avoidance. The anxious attachment style is associated with high anxiety and low avoidance. The dismissing-avoidant attachment style is associated with low anxiety and high avoidance.The fearful-avoidant attachment style is associated with high anxiety and high avoidance.

Working Models in Adults

Bowlby theorized that children form internal working models of themselves and their caregivers. These internal working models contain expectations about the the accessibility and responsiveness of their caregivers.

"Confidence that an attachment figure is, apart from being accessible, likely to be responsive can be seen to turn on at least two variables: (a) whether or not the attachment figure is judged to be the sort of person who in general responds to calls for support and protection; (b) whether or not the self is judged to be the sort of person towards whom anyone, and the attachment figure in particular, is likely to respond in a helpful way. Logically, these variables are independent. In practice they are apt to be confounded. As a result, the model of the attachment figure and the model of the self are likely to develop so as to be complementary and mutually confirming." (Bowlby, 1973, page 238)

Although internal working models are based on experiences with caregivers, Bowlby argued working models remain fairly stable throughout the lifespan. This stability makes working models appear like personality traits. As a result of stability in working models, people tend to have the same attachment style across time and across relationships. In extending attachment theory to adults, Hazen and Shaver adopted the view that working models are relatively stable throughout life, and hence attachment styles are consitent across time and across relationships.

Subsequent studies have focused on two questions:

• What exactly is the nature and organization of internal working models?
• Are internal working models, and hence attachment styles, stable over time and across relationships?

These questions are briefly examined below.

Nature of Working Models

A number of investigators have focused on the idea that working models contain distinct but complementary models of self and other. These working models function to working models function to "predict the behavior of others and to plan one’s own behavior to achieve relational goals" (Feeney, Noller, & Roberts 1999, page 192).

Baldwin and colleagues have applied the theory of relational schema to working models of attachment. Relational schema also contain information about self and others, but this information is integrated into script-like structures that can be characterized by IF-THEN statements. For example, "If I ask my partner to accompany me to my next doctor's appointment, she will change her schedule to accompany me." This example shows the IF-THEN statements can include information about the accessibility and responsiveness of an attachment figure. The IF-THEN statements can also helps the individual plan behaviors (e.g., asking the partner to come along).

Stability of Working Models

Studies have provided only partial support for the stability of working models. Attachment styles are moderately stable over time, but are more flexible than might be expected of a personality trait. Changes in attachment styles often follow negative relationship experiences.

Studies do not support the idea that attachment styles remain consistent across relationships. Instead, people exhibit different styles of attachment in their different relationships with friends, parents, lovers, and so forth.

A heirarchical organization of working models may explain these mixed findings. The lower level of the hierarchy consists of working models for each individual relationship. The individual working models may explain the moderate flexibility of attachment styles over time and across relationships. The higher level of the hierarchy consists of a single working model generalized from the various lower-level working models. The generalized working model may explain the relative stability of attachment styles over time and across relationships. One study has found evidence of a hierarchical organization in working models.

Attachment and Relationship Outcomes

Adult romantic relationships vary in their outcomes. The partners of some relationships express more satisfaction than the partners of other relationships. The partners of some relationships stay together longer than the partners of other relationships. The satisfaction and duration have long been used by researchers to indicate the relative success of relationship outcomes. Does attachment influence the satisfaction or duration of relationships?

Relationship Satisfaction

Several studies have examined how attachment influences relationship satisfaction. Attachment does appear to influence satisfaction.

Relationship Duration

The role of attachment in relationship duration remains uncertain. Studies of attachment and relationship duration have produced mixed findings. Further studies are needed to understand what role, if any, attachment plays in determining how long relationships last.

Attachment and Relationship Dynamics

Attachment has also been related to a variety of relationship phenomena. These include emotion regulation, jealousy, support, and self-determination.

Emotion Regulation

Mikulincer, Shaver, Pereg (2003) have provided a detailed model of attachment as an emotional regulation system. They relate different strategies of emotional regulation to different attachment styles.

Jealousy

A number of researchers have explore the relationship between attachment and jealousy. Attachment behaviors and jealousy are often triggered by the same perceptual cues and involve similar psychological processes. Gender differences in attachment styles may contribute to gender differences in jealousy.

Support

Attachment has always been related to support, since the responsiveness of caregivers and romantic partners often refers to supportive behaviors. Kirkpatrick (1998) has written on the close relationships between attachment and support in relationships. Attachment and support have such a close relationship that Kirkpatrick suggests many studies of attachment actually deal with relationship support. Although proposing some admittedly controversial ideas about attachment and support, Kirkpatrick has provided interesting insights into the relationship between attachment and support.

Motivation

Self Determination theory proposes that human being have three fundamental needs: relatedness, support, and autonomy. These needs underly motivational processes. Some theorists have suggested that attachment theory provides insights into the basic need for relatedness.

Attachment and psychotherapy

Attachment Theory has become the dominant theory used today in the study of infant and toddler behavior and in the fields of infant mental health, treatment of children, and related fields. Several evidence-based and effective treatments are based on attachment theory including Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. Nearly all mainstream programs for the prevention and treatment of disorders of attachment attachment disorder use attachment theory. For example, the Circle of Security Program, (Dr. Robert Marvin, University of VA) is one such early intervention program with demonstrated effectiveness. Dr. Marvin and Dr. Siegel (University of California) both also endorse Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Other promising treatment methods remain under clinical investigation, for example, the Circle of Security Program of Dr. Robert Marvin at the University of Virginia, Developmental, Individual-difference, Relationship-based therapy (DIR or Floor Time) by Stanley Greenspan.

Dyadic developmental psychotherapy is an evidence-based treatment(1) approach for the treatment of attachment disorder and reactive attachment disorder. Children who have experienced pervasive and extensive trauma, neglect, loss, and/or other dysregulating experiences can benefit from this treatment. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is based on principles derived from Attachment Theory and Research; see the work of Bowlby. The treatment meets the standards of the American Professional Society on Child Abuse, The American Academy of Child Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, National Association of Social Workers, and various other groups' standards for the evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents. This is a non-coercive treatment.

Various organizations have adopted standards against the use of coercive interventions: APSAC, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers. All of the aforementioned organizations have adopted formal statements (in some cases practice parameters) opposing the coercive treatments. Recognized professional organizations have been unanimous in recommending against the use of coercive treatments. Circle of Security, Theraplay, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, and others being non-coercive approaches, meet these standards as evidenced by the support of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy by Dr. Daniel Siegel of the University of California at LA medical school and author of The Developing Mind, among many other articles and books and Dr. Robert Marvin of the University of Virginia Attachment Clinic.

Recommended Reading

• Becker-Weidman, A., & Shell, D., (Eds). (2005) Creating Capacity for Attachment Wood N Barnes, Oklahoma City, OK. ISBN 1885473729
• Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P., (Eds). (1999) Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications. Guilford Press, NY.
• Greenberg, MT, Cicchetti, D., & Cummings, EM., (Eds) (1990) Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research and Intervention University of Chicago, Chicago.
• Greenspan, S. (1993) Infancy and Early Childhood. Madison, CT: International Universities Press. ISBN 0823626334.
• Holmes, J. (1993) John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. Routledge. ISBN 0415077303.
• Holmes, J. (2001) The Search for the Secure Base: Attachment Theory and Psychotherapy. London: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 1583911529.
• Parkes, CM, Stevenson-Hinde, J., Marris, P., (Eds.) (1991) Attachment Across The Life Cycle Routledge. NY. ISBN 0415056519
• Siegler R., DeLoache, J. & Eisenberg, N. (2003) How Children develop. New York: Worth. ISBN 1572592494.
• Sturt, SM (Ed) (2006). New Developments in Child Abuse Research Nove, NY. ISBN: 159454980X

See also

• Affectional bond
• Attachment therapy
• Human bonding
• Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy
• Erik Erikson
• Mary Ainsworth
• Melanie Klein

• Jerome Kagan
• Jean Piaget
• John Bowlby
• Object relations theory
• Reactive attachment disorder
• Sigmund Freud

External links

• Information on effective treatment for attachment disorders and training for professionals. Information on Dyadic Devvelopmental Psychotherapy
• Parenting: Attachment, Bonding and Reactive Attachment Disorder
• Relationship Advice: How Understanding Adult Attachment Can Help
• Attachment Questionnaire