Week 14 Reading 2

Attachment Through the Life Course

Key terms:
 Attachment Figure: Someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base
for an individual. In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent. In
adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner.
 Attachment Behavioral System: A motivational system selected over the course of
evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary
attachment figure.
 Attachment Behaviors: Behaviors and signals that attract the attention of a primary
attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to
reestablish proximity to that individual (e.g., crying, clinging).
 Strange Situation: A laboratory task that involves briefly separating and reuniting infants
and their primary caregivers as a way of studying individual differences in attachment
behavior.
 Attachment Patterns: (also called “attachment styles” or “attachment orientations”)
Individual differences in how securely (vs. insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in
attachment relationships.

Learning Objectives:

Explain the way the attachment system works and its evolutionary significance.

 Attachment theory was originally developed in the 1940s by John Bowlby, a British
psychoanalyst who was attempting to understand the intense distress experienced by
infants who had been separated from their parents.
 He observed that infants would go to extraordinary lengths to prevent separation from
their parents or to reestablish proximity to a missing parent. They would often:
o Cry
o Call for their parents
o Refuse to eat or play
o Stand at the door in desperate anticipation of their parents’ return.
 At the time of Bowlby’s initial writings, psychoanalytic writers believed that these
expressions were manifestations of immature defense mechanisms that were operating
to repress emotional pain.
 However, Bowlby observed that such expressions are common to a wide variety of
mammalian species and speculated that these responses to separation may serve an
evolutionary function
 When Bowlby was originally developing his theory of attachment, there were alternative
theoretical perspectives on why infants were emotionally attached to their primary
caregivers:
o Bowlby and other theorists believed that there was something important about
the responsiveness and contact provided by mothers.
o Other theorists argued that young infants feel emotionally connected to their
mothers because mothers satisfy more basic needs, such as the need for food.
 Harlow’s research on contact comfort:
o psychologist Harry Harlow placed young monkeys in cages that contained two
artificial, surrogate “mothers”. One of those surrogates was a simple wire
contraption; the other was a wire contraption covered in cloth.
o Both of the surrogate mothers were equipped with a feeding tube so that Harrow
and his colleagues had the option to allow the surrogate to deliver or not deliver
milk.
o Harlow found that the young monkeys spent a disproportionate amount of time
with the cloth surrogate as opposed to the wire surrogate. Moreover, this was
true even when the infants were fed by the wire surrogate rather than the cloth
surrogate.
o This suggests that the strong emotional bond that infants form with their primary
caregivers is rooted in something more than whether the caregiver provides food
per se.
o Harlow’s research is now regarded as one of the first experimental
demonstrations of the importance of “contact comfort” in the establishment of
infant–caregiver bonds.
 Evolutionary theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the
natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to
compete, survive, and reproduce.
 Drawing on evolutionary theory, Bowlby (1969) argued that:
o these behaviors are adaptive responses to separation from a primary attachment
figure—a caregiver who provides support, protection, and care.
o Because human infants, like other mammalian infants, cannot feed or protect
themselves, they are dependent upon the care and protection of “older and
wiser” adults for survival
o Bowlby argued that, over the course of evolutionary history, infants who were
able to maintain proximity to an attachment figure would be more likely to
survive to a reproductive age.
 Attachment Behavior System:
o A motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain
proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure.
o The attachment system functions much like a thermostat that continuously
monitors the ambient temperature of a room, comparing that temperature
against a desired state and adjusting behavior (e.g., activating the furnace)
accordingly.
o In the case of the attachment system, Bowlby argued that the system
continuously monitors the accessibility of the primary attachment figure.
o If the child perceives the attachment figure to be nearby, accessible, and
attentive, then the child feels loved, secure, and confident and, behaviorally, is
likely to explore his or her environment, play with others, and be sociable.
o If, however, the child perceives the attachment figure to be inaccessible, the child
experiences anxiety and, behaviorally, is likely to exhibit attachment behaviors
ranging from simple visual searching on the low extreme to active searching,
following, and vocal signaling on the other.
 o Attachment Behaviors: Behaviors and signals that attract the attention of a
primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that
individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual (e.g., crying, clinging).
o These attachment behaviors continue either:
 until the child is able to reestablish a desirable level of physical or
psychological proximity to the attachment figure or
 until the child exhausts himself or herself or gives up, as may happen in
the context of a prolonged separation or loss.

Identify three commonly studied attachment patterns and what is known about the
development of those patterns:

 Mary Ainsworth, began to systematically study infant–parent separations. Ainsworth and

her students developed a technique called the strange situation—a laboratory task for
studying infant–parent attachment
 12-month-old infants and their parents are brought to the laboratory and, over a period
of approximately 20 minutes, are systematically separated from and reunited with one
another
 most children (about 60%) become upset when the parent leaves the room, but, when
he or she returns, they actively seek the parent and are easily comforted by him or her.
Children who exhibit this pattern of behavior are often called secure.
 Other children (about 20% or less) are ill at ease (uncomfortable) initially and, upon
separation, become extremely distressed. Importantly, when reunited with their parents,
these children have a difficult time being soothed and often exhibit conflicting behaviors
that suggest they want to be comforted, but that they also want to “punish” the parent
for leaving. These children are often called anxious-resistant.
 Other children (about 20%) do not consistently behave as if they are stressed by the
separation but, upon reunion, actively avoid seeking contact with their parent,
sometimes turning their attention to play objects on the laboratory floor. These children
are often called avoidant.
 According to Ainsworth’s research, at least three types of children exist:
o those who are secure in their relationship with their parents
o those who are anxious-resistant
o those who are anxious-avoidant
 Finally, she demonstrated that these individual differences were correlated with infant–
parent interactions in the home during the first year of life:
o Children who appear secure in the strange situation tend to have parents who
are responsive to their needs.
o Children who appear insecure in the strange situation (i.e., anxious-resistant or
avoidant) often have parents who are insensitive to their needs, or inconsistent
or rejecting in the care they provide.
 When the child is uncertain or stressed, the ability of the caregiver to provide support to
the child is critical for his or her psychological development. It is assumed that such
supportive interactions help the child learn to regulate his or her emotions, give the child
the confidence to explore the environment, and provide the child with a safe haven
during stressful circumstances.
 Attachment Patterns and Child Outcomes:
o Researchers have learned that children who are classified as secure in the strange
situation are more likely to:
 have high functioning relationships with peers
 be evaluated favorably by teachers
 persist with more diligence in challenging tasks
o In contrast, insecure-avoidant children are more likely to:
 be construed as “bullies”
 have a difficult time building and maintaining friendships

Describe what is known about the consequences of secure versus insecure attachment in
adult 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.
 Hazan and Shaver noted that in both kinds of relationship, people:
o feel safe and secure when the other person is present
o turn to the other person during times of sickness, distress, or fear
o use the other person as a “secure base” from which to explore the world
o speak to one another in a unique language, often called “motherese” or “baby
talk.”
 On the basis of these parallels, Hazan and Shaver (1987) argued that adult romantic
relationships, such as infant–caregiver relationships, are attachments.
 individuals gradually transfer attachment-related functions from parents to peers as they
develop. Thus, although young children tend to use their parents as their primary
attachment figures, as they reach adolescence and young adulthood, they come to rely
more upon close friends and/or romantic partners for basic attachment-related
functions.
 Thus, although a young child may turn to his or her mother for comfort, support, and
guidance when distressed, scared, or ill, young adults may be more likely to turn to their
romantic partners for these purposes under similar situations.
 Hazan and Shaver (1987) asked a diverse sample of adults to read the three paragraphs
below and indicate which paragraph best characterized the way they think, feel, and
behave in close relationships:
o 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. (Avoident)
o 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. (Secure)
 o 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. (Anxious)
 They found that the distribution of the three patterns was similar to that observed in
infancy. In other words, about 60% of adults classified themselves as secure (paragraph
B), about 20% described themselves as avoidant (paragraph A), and about 20% described
themselves as anxious-resistant (paragraph C).
 Moreover, they found that people who described themselves as secure:
o were more likely to report having had warm and trusting relationships with their
parents when they were growing up
o were more likely to have positive views of romantic relationships.
 Based on these findings, Hazan and Shaver (1987) concluded that the same kinds of
individual differences that exist in infant attachment also exist in adulthood.
 Who Ends Up with Whom?:
o Are secure people more likely to end up with secure partners—and, vice versa,
are insecure people more likely to end up with insecure partners? The majority of
the research that has been conducted to date suggests that the answer is “yes.”
o Do these findings exist because:
 secure people are more likely to be attracted to other secure people
 secure people are likely to create security in their partners over time
 some combination of these possibilities.
o Existing empirical research strongly supports the first alternative.
o There is also some evidence that people’s attachment styles mutually shape one
another in close relationships. For example, a longitudinal study found that, if
one person in a relationship experienced a change in security, his or her partner
was likely to experience a change in the same direction.
 Relationship Functioning
o Research has consistently demonstrated that individuals who are relatively
secure are more likely than insecure individuals to have high functioning
relationships that are more satisfying, more enduring, and less characterized by
conflict.
o insecure individuals were more likely than secure individuals to experience a
breakup of their relationship.
 Do Early Experiences Shape Adult Attachment?
o secure adults are more likely to describe their early childhood experiences with
their parents as being supportive, loving, and kind
o A study found that attachment security, assessed in infancy in the strange
situation, predicted peer competence in grades 1 to 3, which, in turn, predicted
the quality of friendship relationships at age 16, which, in turn, predicted the
expression of positive and negative emotions in their adult romantic relationships
at ages 20 to 23.
o Attachment theorists assume that the relationship between early experiences
and subsequent outcomes is probabilistic, not deterministic. Having supportive
and responsive experiences with caregivers early in life is assumed to set the
stage for positive social development. But that does not mean that attachment
patterns are set in stone.
o Even if an individual has far from optimal experiences in early life, attachment
theory suggests that it is possible for that individual to develop well-functioning
adult relationships through a number of corrective experiences—including
relationships with siblings, other family members, teachers, and close friends.
o Security is best viewed as a culmination of a person’s attachment history rather
than a reflection of his or her early experiences alone.