Once an attachment is formed, the child will display a variety of behaviours – if their attachment figure is not present they will display separation anxiety and become upset, however pleasure will be shown when the caregiver returns. An attachment is also characterised through proximity seeking, and the attachment figure is seen as a safe haven – a place the child can receive care, attention, and reassurance if hurt or upset, and a secure base from which the child can explore the world around them whilst knowing that the caregiver is close, for reassurance.
Bowlby developed Freud’s idea that a child’s first relationship is a ‘prototype’ for later relationships, and he proposed that each child forms a mental representation of its first attachment, known as an ‘internal working model’. This is called upon when forming later relationships, so if for example a person had been neglected or abused as an infant, it is more likely they will seek out of display those behaviours in their relationships as an adult. Bowlby believed that the relationship needed to be continuous, and any break in it – also known as deprivation, would have a negative effect on the child later in life and may massively effect development. In his maternal deprivation hypothesis he states that the break of an attachment during the ‘critical’ period may potentially result in two things – either affectionless psychopathy, where the person cannot feel empathy of guilt for others, and is likely therefore to turn to crime, or development retardation, where the child will have a very low IQ.
One of the strengths of Bowlby’s theory of attachment is the practical applications that his research has. Due to his work into attachment and maternal deprivation, hospital visiting hours for children have changed, and in many cases mothers/primary caregivers are allowed to stay in hospital with their child. He has also influenced the organisation of things like day care. There is also a lot of research that backs the theory up, Bowlby’s own study, Forty four juvenile thieves (1946) showed that out of 14 children identified as affectionless psychopaths, 12 had experiences prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of life, and only 5 out of 30 delinquent children not classified as affectionless psychopaths had experiences similar separations. This provides support for his maternal deprivation hypothesis but also shows the importance of attachment.
There is also evidence that attachment has an evolutionary basis, primarily shown by the ethological work of Lorenz. He did his own study in geese and their process of imprinting in order to survive. Lorenz found that there was a certain critical stage soon after hatching where the animals had to imprint; otherwise they would not at all. This study supports the evolutionary theory of attachment and the idea that attachment is an innate process, not a learnt one. In addition Harry Harlow’s work with monkeys provides further support for the maternal deprivation hypothesis and attachment – he reared monkeys in isolation from their mother, and the monkeys were fearful and aggressive and poor mothers to their own offspring, showing that they had no internal working model. And in another experiment when ‘surrogate’ mothers were provided, Harlow concluded that the monkeys needed comfort as well as food. This also proves Bowlby right in that it shows that the bond needs to be two ways, and Harlow’s conclusions have been extended to human babies and it is believed that the comfort they receive from attachment is very important. However there are problems generalising findings from animal studies to humans, as human behaviour is more complex.
The importance of parenting response has also been reinforced by studies such as Brazleton et al (1975) who observed mothers and babies during their interactions. The saw that mothers and babies took turns to begin interactions and imitated each other, and called this interactional synchrony. They then undertook an experiment and Mother’s were asked to ignore the baby’s social releasers, they found that the babies quickly became distressed, with some curling up exhibiting signs of depression. Their findings support Bowlby’s theory of attachment and his ideas about social releasers and the importance of responding to them.
However the implication that separation from the primary care-giver, even for short periods of time, may cause psychological damage, has led to working mothers feeling guilty about leaving their child. His theories were used as a tool to make more women stay at home to care for their children, however this brings up the debate of which is worse for a child – having a stay at home mother but living in poverty or having a mother absent but bringing in money. Both poverty and deprivation have negative effects of children’s development. Bowlby has also been criticised for his idea that attachment to a single care-giver is important due to the fact that most children have multiple attachments to other ‘secondary’ care-givers, such as the father, grandparents, and nursery teachers etc. Bowlby is also criticised for not distinguishing between privation and deprivation, and that the more extreme psychological damage (such as affectionless psychopathy and developmental retardation that he suggested) may be caused more by privation than deprivation.
Overall, largely Bowlby’s theory is thought to be credible – there is a lot of experimental evidence to back the theory up and it is believable that a child’s first and most important attachment is its mother, however it is likely that he overstated the importance of early relations with the primary caregiver, and it is generally thought that children are more resilient to early experiences than he gave them credit for, and Bowlby did later acknowledge this.