Bowlby’s research has been criticised for being correlational as separation cannot be manipulated as an independent variable, which means cause and effect cannot be inferred. Thus, it cannot be said that separation causes emotional damage or affectionless psychopathy. Other factors such as family conflict have led to this. At best we can say separation and affectionless psychopathy are linked. Another criticism of Bowlby is that he has researcher bias. Bowlby conducted the case studies and made the diagnosis of affectionless psychopathy and so his judgements been influenced by his own expectations. This could undermine the validity of his research.
Bowlby saw attachment as a process that the mother and child engaged in, in order to prolong survival, in a very Darwinian way. The baby needs warmth, protection and food from the mother and in responding the mother ensures the continuation of her genetic material. Once the bond is established this provides the child with a ‘secure base’ from which to explore, thus enabling the child to mature and eventually establish independence. The process is aided by ‘social releasers’. These are behaviours which help the attachment bond to form and be maintained as they are continual. Social releasers include crying and gurgling. Once established, these behaviours tend to cause the carer to act in a particular way i.e. getting the child food, etc.
Bowlby insists on a ‘critical period’ of about 2.5 years from the age of 6months. Attachment must have occurred during this time and if not the child will suffer the consequences later in life. This initial relationship acts as a pattern of relationship formation in later life. This was called the ‘internal working model’ and without it the child may be unable to form relationships effectively in the future. From his research, Bowlby concluded that infants have a hierarchy of attachments with the primary caregiver attachment at the top; he called this the monotrophy hypothesis. There are special implications in the monotrophy hypothesis as it forms the basis of the internal working model.
There have been many alternative views to Bowlby’s monotrophy hypothesis. Thomas, 1998 suggested it is better for a child to have a number of attachments to enable a child to have all of its needs met. This is true in other countries such as the Caribbean where infants form several attachments all of which fulfil their needs in different ways. However, Tronick, Morelli and Ivey provided some cross-cultural evidence to support Bowlby’s argument that within many attachments there is always a hierarchy with the maternal attachment at the top. They studied an African tribe called the Efe who live in large extended families where the children are breastfed by many women but usually slept with their own mothers. When tested at 6 months old, the infants showed a preference for their own mothers.
Bowlby’s theory of attachment does not explain how children survive poor attachment experiences. It does not account for those who have experienced prolonged maternal deprivation and therefore a severed attachment to their primary caregiver who later go on to form perfectly healthy bonds with other people.
Howes et al, 1994 found that different relationships are formed with a variety of people and if an internal working model was formed as a template for all relationships then all relationships would be the same. As the relationship with the mother is stronger and more intense than those they share with others, this shows that an internal working model may not be the template for all future relationships. Also, it was found that parent-child relationships may not be positively correlated with child-peer relationships. The explanation could be as simple as some children might just be better at forming relationships than others, meaning it is individual differences in infants that account for attachments. Children who are appealing to their parents are likely to be appealing to other people. Therefore it could be said that a child who does well in one relationship is more likely to do well in others.
Bowlby puts forward interesting ideas and his research led to many changes in childcare and led to further research into attachments, for which it cannot be criticised.
