Furthermore, attachment is important for protection, because it acts as a secure base from which an infant can explore the environment and safe place to return to when they feel in danger. Consequently, attachment encourages independence than dependence.
Bowlby gave evidence that infants form many attachments but there was one special attachment which is very important. This bias towards the primary attachment, which is called montropy. Infants have secondary attachments which form a hierarchy of attachments. The attachment between the infant and the mother is thought to be the special attachment. When an infant becomes strongly attached with the person who responds sensitively them is known is sensitive responsiveness. This person becomes the infant’s primary attachment figure, who provides the main base for the emotional development, relationships with peers, there children, and self esteem. Secondary attachments are also important as they provide a safety network and contribute to social development. Infants who do not have a secondary attachment figure lack in social skills.
An attachment is between a caregiver and an infant, this relationship relies on trust but it also is uncertainty and inconsistency, which creates expectations what each relationship is like. Little by little the infant builds up a model about emotional relationships, this is known as the internal working model. This model is a group of notions about relationships and what to expect from others.
The last key feature of Bowlby’s theory is continuity hypothesis. As the internal working model gives evidence that there is consistency among early emotional experiences and later affairs. Which leads to the continuity hypothesis, this is the view that there is a link among the early attachment relationship and later emotional actions. This means that infants who are securely attached earlier are more and will continue to be socially and emotionally experienced, while on the other hand, infants who are insecurely attached will have difficulties on experiencing socially and emotionally later in as a child and a adult.
There are many studies which support Bowlby’s perspective of evolutionary explanation of attachment, these are as follows –
- Konrad Lorenz (1952) – attachment behaviour in animals - imprinting
- Shaffer and Emerson (1964) – development of social attachment in infancy – Monotropy
- Hazer and Shaver (1987) – love quiz – internal working model
Firstly, Konrad Lorenz’s study of attachment behaviour in animals; he divided the eggs by greylag geese into two groups. There was a difference in the way each group of eggs were hatched, one of the groups was hatched by their mother and the second group was hatched in an incubator. After they were hatched, the first group followed their mother, and the second group followed Lorenz. There was a pattern which emerged in the behaviour of the goslings; this was that the goslings were genetically programmed to exhibit certain behaviour with regard to any large organism that was there during the critical period of their life which is between 12-17 hours after hatching. This phenomenon is known as ‘imprinting’. This study supports Bowlby’s theory of attachment because Konrad Lorenz has the view that imprinting is innate because the goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw. Bowlby believe that a similar adaptive process of forming attachments is likely to have evolved in humans as well as animals to enhance survival and increase the likelihood of reproduction. However, Lorenz believed that imprinting tool place during a critical period whereas Bowlby believed that in the notion of a sensitive period which was between 3-6 months of age for an infant attachment formation.
The second study which supported Bowlby is by Shaffer and Emerson called the developmental of social attachment in infancy. This study looked at the gradual development of attachments. Shaffer and Emerson studied sixty babies in Glasgow, visiting them monthly for the first year and returning again at eighteen months. They collected data on attachment by considering two types of behaviours. These were – separation anxiety – when the caregiver id absent the child develops anxiety; and stranger distress – unfamiliar faces which gets them distress. Shaffer and Emerson used a variety of methods to collect their data including observation and interviewing. During each visit, they would approach the baby and see if they cried, whimpered, or showed signs of distress at a strange face. They interviewed the mother, asking them about the baby’s response to various situations such as picking them up after putting them to sleep using a four point scare from zero; zero being no protest shown and to four cries loudly every time. Shaffer and Emerson’s findings suggest that attachment behaviours in babies developed in stages which were loosely linked to their age –
- A-Social – 0-6 weeks – Similar responses to objects and people. Discriminate familiar people by smell and voice. Do not prefer specific people to other.
- Indiscriminate – 6 weeks – 6 months – become more sociable. Relatively easily comforted by anyone. Don’t show fear of strangers.
- Specific – 7+ months – begin to show separation anxiety and show fear of strangers. The special and important attachment is formed.
- Multiple – 10-11 months and onwards – multiple attachments follow soon after first attachment is made and shows behaviours towards different people.
In contrast of Bowlby’s idea of montropy and hierarchy, Shaffer and Emerson study said that the infant formed their first attachment with one particular person at 7 months and multiple attachments follow soon after it which was at 10-11 months and onwards. However, Bowlby believed that if this special attachment is not formed during the first two and a half years it would not occur at all, while Shaffer and Emerson assumed that the this special and important attachment is formed after seven months and multiple attachments were followed soon after 10-11 months
Another study which supports Bowlby’s theory is by Hazen and Shaver called the ‘love quiz’. The ‘love quiz’ was printed in a newspaper to assess -
- Early attachment experiences which was measured using the a checklist assessing both a child’s relationship with their parents in childhood and the relationship between the parents themselves.
- Later experiences of adult romantic love
- Beliefs about romantic love
Respondents who were securely attached as infants had trusting and lasting relationships. Anxious/insecure infants worried that partners didn’t love them and showed obsessive and jealous behaviour. Avoidant/insecure types feared intimacy and believed that they did not need love to be happy. This supports Bowlby’s theory as it shows that early attachments do act as a template for the future in this case in establishing adult relationships. This supports the internal working model because love experience and attitude towards love were related to attachment type. Nevertheless, we cannot say that infant attachment styles are identical to adult romantic-attachment styles; research has shown that early attachment styles can help predict patterns of behaviour in adulthood but they can be wrong.
In conclusion, John Bowlby’s theory of attachment is an evolutionary study which has had an enormous effect on many aspects of everyday life. To summarise Bowlby believed that attachments are innate and adaptive, meaning that they enhance the likelihood of survival and reproduction. Infants elicit behaviours and characteristics called social releasers which trigger biological care-giving reaction. The special relationship with a primary attachment figure, which Bowlby called monotropy, acts as a template of expectation for later relationships as a result of the internal working model. Attachment type in early childhood is said to be indicate behaviour patterns in later life. This is called the continuity hypothesis. Many studies have supported Bowlby’s theory for example – Shaffer and Emerson and Konrad Lorenz. This means that
