See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314117326 Attachment Theory Chapter · January 2017 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3823-1 CITATIONS READS 0 29,059 1 author: Elaine Scharfe Trent University 28 PUBLICATIONS 972 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Measurement of Adult Attachment View project Attachment and Health View project All content following this page was uploaded by Elaine Scharfe on 07 December 2017. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. A Attachment Theory childhood or traumatic or salient events during adulthood. Elaine Scharfe Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada Early Years Definition Bowlby’s theory of attachment includes several important foundational constructs. First and foremost, attachment relationships are clearly presented as a biological predisposition evolved to ensure survival. Individuals are proposed to develop attachment relationships with caregivers and seek and maintain proximity to these caregivers when stressed, ill, or afraid. Differences in sensitivity of care were proposed to be associated with individual differences in attachment. Although Bowlby was particularly interested in the parent-child relationship, he was clear that attachment representations would be important for relationship functioning from “cradle to grave.” Infants tend to develop a primary attachment with their predominant caregiver; however, infants can develop multiple attachment relationships, and, throughout childhood and adulthood, we organize these attachment relationships into a hierarchy. And finally, Bowlby proposed that once formed, attachment representations would be stable – in particular in adulthood – although attachment representations could change in response to changes in caregiving during The roots of attachment theory were first established in the 1930s and 1940s when a number of clinicians observed the negative effects of maternal separations early in life. John Bowlby was one of many who observed this effect; for example, in 1944 he outlined how poor parenting influenced the behavior of a group of juvenile thieves. It was not until 1950, when he was offered a short-term contract to work at the World Health Organization (WHO), that he had the opportunity to organize his and others’ work in the area. The resulting report from his WHO contract, published in 1951, summarized what was known to date about the negative effect of poor caregiving and maternal separation on infants’ health and well-being. Bowlby later reported that several reviewers pointed out that an overarching theory to explain these observations was missing. In Bowlby’s quest to develop such a theory, he was greatly influenced by both psychoanalytic theory and ethology. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to state that his development of attachment theory, rooted in his psychoanalytic training, was further strengthened as he acquired knowledge about evolutionary theory and ethological principals, in particular work of Robert Hinde, Konrad Lorenz, Harry Harlow, and Charles # Springer International Publishing AG 2017 T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3823-1 2 Darwin. It was not until the late 1950s that Bowlby presented his theory of attachment to the British Psychoanalytic Society in London, and the initial reactions were quite negative. In Bowlby’s words “many psychoanalysts. . . remained unconvinced and sometimes very critical.” Despite this criticism, Bowlby’s research group at Tavistock continued to amass support for the theory of attachment which culminated in his trilogy – attachment and loss (volume 1, Attachment; volume 2, Separation: Anxiety and Anger; volume 3, Loss: Sadness and Depression). Bowlby consulted and collaborated with several notable scientists while developing his theory of attachment including Harry Harlow, Konrad Lorenz, and Robert Hinde, but it was, however, his collaborations with Mary Ainsworth that helped to put attachment research on the psychological map. In 1950, Mary Ainsworth traveled to London and, by chance, applied for a research position advertised in the London Times and joined Bowlby’s research team at Tavistock. With Bowlby, she began studying the effects of maternal separation on child development; however, she was well prepared to contribute to his work. Previous to this move, Ainsworth had completed her PhD at the University of Toronto, and there had begun exploring the concept of security with William Blatz in her dissertation work – it was Ainsworth who defined the concept of the “secure base” building upon her research initiated in Canada. Ainsworth worked at Tavistock until 1954 when she traveled to Uganda, but she, of course, continued both her work in attachment and her lifelong collaboration with Bowlby. Following her time in Uganda, she moved to Baltimore, and finally in 1958 she was given a permanent position at Johns Hopkins all the while continuing her collaborations with Bowlby and her operationalization of attachment. Use of Attachment Behaviors Attachment relationships, and the use of attachment behaviors, are clearly presented as a biological predisposition evolved to ensure survival. Attachment Theory Bowlby (1969/1991) spent considerable time describing the nature and function of behaviors that lead to attachment. Infants use several behaviors to seek proximity to their attachment figures (e.g., crying, vocalizing, following) and also use behaviors to maintain proximity (e.g., smiling, clinging). Once infants are mobile and confident in the care of their attachment figure, they tend to use the attachment figure as a “secure base from which to explore,” returning to the caregiver’s safe haven (i.e., proximity to the attachment figure) for comfort and reassurance when needed. He proposed that infants are biologically predisposed to seek and gain proximity to caregivers and in these relationships develop a sense of whether they are worthy of love and support and a sense of whether their caregivers can be trusted and relied upon to provide care and support. Over the course of infancy and childhood, these views of the self and the other develop into sophisticated internal working models of what to expect from close others, and these internal working models guide behavior over the lifespan. His observations and work with John Robertson on the destructive impact of early parent-infant separations lead him to conclude that children learn to tolerate longer parental separations; however, both children and adults find separations from attachment figures to be distressing and will go through a predictable sequence of behaviors – distress, despair, and detachment (see below). In fact, even predominately secure individuals report distress when separated for prolonged periods of time with little or no contact (Bowlby 1973/1991). This focus on separations is not surprising given his tendency toward ethology and the importance of parental protection on survival. When separated from caregivers, infants were observed to react with a predictable sequence of behaviors which Bowlby suggested would have ensured their survival. First, when initially separated, infants will protest to attract the attention of caregivers and, if possible, attempt to search for caregivers. Sensitive and responsive caregivers respond to these initial vocalizations by returning and comforting infants; infants with less sensitive or unresponsive caregivers (in our evolutionary past and the present) develop representations that Attachment Theory care will not be given or inconsistently received. Over time, the individuals’ experience supports the development of internal working models of attachment – individuals’ belief that the self is worthy of care (or not) and that the care needed when they express distress will be forthcoming (or not). From Bowlby’s observations of children who experienced prolonged separations from their primary caregivers, he proposed that the next phase of separation – if protests and searching are not successful – would be a period of despair. In this phase, infants stop their protests as well as their search; this reaction is proposed to have developed to protect infants from predators when their initial vocalizations to seek proximity to caregivers were not successful. Finally, Bowlby observed that infants who experienced prolonged separations – and following a period of distress and despair were not reunited with their caregivers – moved to a phase he described as detachment. He believed that these infants were proposed to experience detachment from their separated caregiver, thereby allowing the opportunity to develop attachment relationships with new caregivers who may be better suited to provide the necessary care and support needed to ensure survival. Separations and Reunions Ideally, children should feel secure in the presence of caregivers, and when threatened they should seek proximity to caregivers for protection. Children, who are separated from insensitive or rejecting parents, may have developed insecure representations of their relationship with these parents, and therefore they may struggle when coping with the stress of the separation and the associated effects on the family. Furthermore, regardless of degree of security, both children and adults find separations from attachment figures to be distressing – even predominately secure children and adults go through the phases of distress, despair, and detachment when separated for prolonged periods of time with little or no contact (Bowlby 1973/1991). 3 Ainsworth continued to provide support for Bowlby’s theory and expanded upon the idea that although the goal of attachment (i.e., seeking a secure base) is similar for all children, their mechanisms for seeking proximity differ depending on caregiving experiences, in particular the sensitivity and responsiveness of the caregiver (Ainsworth et al. 1978). It was Ainsworth and colleagues who first suggested that the reunion, as well as the separation, is informative in understanding attachment. In a series of articles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ainsworth and colleagues introduced the Strange Situation (SS). For example, Ainsworth and Bell (1970) presented one of the first studies to describe their methodology. Interestingly, although perhaps deliberate on their part but clearly overshadowed by subsequent work, their initial focus was on the attachment behaviors during the separations and reunions and not attachment categories: Their article clearly summarized the SS procedure and behind-the-scenes observation techniques. In particular, they highlighted the importance of infants’ signaling of the parent, actively approaching the parent, and the aversive behaviors of the infants that illustrated distress. They outlined that the experimenters were trained to record observations of infants’ locomotion and crying as well as manipulation and visual exploration of available toys. Furthermore, the importance of coding infants’ behaviors such as proximity and contact seeking, contact maintenance, interaction avoiding, and interaction resisting as well as search behaviors during the separation episodes was highlighted. Their findings hint at individual differences and, perhaps more importantly, provide empirical support for Bowlby’s earlier assertions that infants separated from their caregivers will go through a predictable sequence of distress. Sensitivity of Care Attachment theory provides an interesting framework work to explore the effects of parenting and caregiving for several reasons. First, Bowlby (1973/1991, 1980/1991) proposed that our attachment representations developed from sensitivity 4 of care received from our primary caregiver. Bowlby proposed that attachment security resulted from responsive, appropriate caregiving and that as a result of this care, individuals developed a sense of the self as worthy of care and a belief that others would be responsive and sensitive when caring (Bowlby 1980/1991) – it was Bowlby’s assertion that personality development was influenced consciously by these experiences that caused criticism from his psychoanalytic colleagues. He proposed, and considerable research has supported, that children should feel secure and contented when safely in the presence of caregivers (secure base), and when threatened they should seek proximity to caregivers as a safe haven. Measurement of Individual Differences in Infant Attachment Ainsworth’s most prolific contribution to attachment theory and research is without a doubt the operationalization of infant attachment categories (Ainsworth et al. 1978): secure (B), avoidant (A), and resistant (C) – as well as Main’s fourth category disorganized (D). Ainsworth’s work not only provided the theoretical and empirical foundation for decades of research in infant attachment; her earlier operationalization of infant attachment also provided the foundation for research in adult attachment. Based on their responses to the SS, infants are classified into one of the following four categories: 1. Children who are categorized as secure (B) have developed a trust in their caregivers’ availability and responsiveness and react to the stress of the SS in ways that highlight their positive expectations. In particular, secure infants seek proximity when reunited with caregivers and can return to play when comforted. 2. Children who are categorized as avoidant (A) have developed a belief that they cannot turn to their caregivers for comfort, and during the SS, avoidant infants typically avoid the Attachment Theory caregiver upon reunion and control – but do not regulate – their negative emotions. 3. Children who are categorized as resistant (C) have learned that care will be unpredictable, and during the SS they seek comfort inconsistently often switching from clingy and sobbing to withdrawing and angry. They cannot be comforted upon reunion and do not return to play with the available toys. 4. The disorganized category was added by Main and colleagues who expanded the examination of parent-child attachment to high-risk samples. Children who are categorized as disorganized (D) are often in the care of parents who are abusive (physically, emotionally, and/or sexually), and in response to the extreme stress of their home life, these children do not present a coherent attachment strategy during the SS (e.g., freezing rather than proximity seeking). The SS procedure provided the impetus for considerable research (well over 7,000 citations for Ainsworth et al. 1978), and over the past 50 years, it has been well established that one of the negative consequences of poor parenting is the development of insecure attachment. Insecurely attached individuals, by definition, tend to have childhood experiences that are characterized by lack of care and high control. Insecure children develop a sense of the world as inconsistent (resistant) or rejecting (avoidant), and it is well established that insecure attachment negatively influences child development. Considerable work has explored attachment beyond infancy into childhood. For example, research has demonstrated that insecure children are less socially competent, are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems, are more likely to have medical problems, and score lower on tests of achievement than secure children. Secure children report pleasurable interactions with their parents; avoidant children, although often nonconfrontational, will minimize interactions with parents; anxious-ambivalent children describe difficult relationships mixed with hostility, sadness, and immature proximityseeking attempts; and disorganized children display negative, punitive behaviors, rejection Attachment Theory and/or embarrassment of the parent, and sometimes overly bright, although inappropriate, affect. Measurement and Development of Adult Attachment From the beginning, Bowlby asserted that attachment representations were important “from the cradle to the grave” (1969/1991, p. 208) and noted that in adolescence and adulthood, there would be a “change of the figures towards whom the [attachment] behavior is directed” (1969/ 1991, p. 179). Although several scholars wrote about the importance of attachment across the lifespan, it was not until the mid- to late 1980s that two groups of researchers independently began to explore the measurement of adult attachment. Their work focused on somewhat different approaches to assessing adult attachment, and the two areas of adult attachment research remain, somewhat, at odds with each other. Main and colleagues developed an interview-based assessment of adults’ attachment of their family of origin which focused on the coherence of their representations (Main et al. 1985), whereas Hazan and Shaver (1987) introduced a simple three-paragraph forced-choice self-report questionnaire that focused on adult romantic relationships. Not surprisingly, since they both modeled their assessment from Ainsworth’s work, both originally proposed three categories and, it is well known that both measures of attachment have proved to be powerful predictors of adult behavior. Main et al.’s (1985) adult attachment interview (AAI) continues to be the primary method of assessing adult attachment in developmental and clinical fields despite the time-consuming training and coding of attachment interviews (see Hesse 2016 for a summary). The interview coding protocol which assesses individuals’ coherence of their current state of mind with respect to their families of origin (past-focused) results in one of four attachment categories: autonomous (secure), dismissing, preoccupied, and unresolved/disorganized. Bakersman-Kranenburg and van 5 IJzendoorn (2009) summarized the data from over 10,000 AAIs addressing issues of baseline proportions in clinical and nonclinical samples, gender distributions, as well as differences in distributions for adolescents and individuals from low SES samples, ethnic minorities, and non-Western countries. Using the four-category classification of a sample of nonclinical mothers (n = 700) as their baseline, their findings indicated that nonclinical fathers, adolescents and students, individuals from at-risk samples, and individuals from clinical samples were more likely to be classified as dismissing than mothers from nonclinical samples. Individuals from at-risk samples were also more likely to be classified as unresolved, and individuals from clinical samples were also more likely to be classified as unresolved or preoccupied. Hazan and Shaver introduced a simple threeparagraph forced-choice self-report measure of adult attachment modeled from Ainsworth’s three infant categories focusing on adult romantic relationships. Their three categories – secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent – proved to be quite productive, but the categorical measurement was met with some concern by personal relationship researchers. Although the three-category measure did not stand the test of time, this seminal article provided the impetus for the next few decades of work on adult attachment. Although the self-report methodology assessing attachment of close peer relationships is controversial – some would say that peer relationships are not attachment relationships (see below for discussion and van IJzendoorn and Bakersmans-Kranenburg 2010 for a recent example) – research exploring the importance of adult peer attachment relationships continues to be prolific, and the effects of adult peer relationships on adult social behavior are well documented. In 1990, Bartholomew published a paper which merged the work of Main et al. (1985) and Hazan and Shaver (1987) as well as Bowlby’s original descriptions of the self- and othermodels. Specifically, Bowlby had proposed that throughout childhood, individuals develop a sense of whether they are worthy of love and 6 support (or not) and a sense of whether others can be trusted and relied upon to provide care and support (or not). By adulthood, these views of the self and the other are well established and have developed into sophisticated internal working models of what to expect from close others, and these internal working models guide behavior over the lifespan. Bartholomew suggested that the intersection Bowlby’s proposed dimensions of the self-model and other-model resulted in a fourcategory model of attachment. Secure individuals were defined to have developed a positive model of both the self and others, and considerable research has supported that secure individuals have high self-esteem and self-confidence as well as high trust and support with others. Preoccupied individuals were defined to have developed a negative model of the self and a positive model of others; similarly, considerable research has supported that preoccupied individuals tend to have conflicting views of the self and others which tends to negatively impact their relationships. Bartholomew noted that her definitions of secure and preoccupied prototypes were consistent with both Main et al. and Hazan and Shaver. Although the previous researchers had each proposed one type of avoidance, Bartholomew expanded this definition of avoidance by proposing that avoidance could be either fearful (similar to Hazan and Shaver’s description of avoidance) or dismissing (similar to Main et al.’s description of avoidance). Fearful individuals were defined to have developed a negative model of both the self and others and tend to consistently report higher levels of depression, neuroticism, marital conflict, and interpersonal sensitivity. Dismissing individuals were defined to have developed a positive model of the self and a negative model of others and reported high levels of self-esteem and selfconfidence but low levels of trust and warmth in their relationships. Researchers have indicated that both types of insecure-avoidant adults deny symptoms of distress (dismissing) or are afraid to ask for help (fearful) as they believe that others will reject their attempts at proximity seeking or challenge their feelings of distress. In her early work, Bartholomew presented both interview and survey measures to assess the four- Attachment Theory category model (see Bartholomew and Horowitz 1991; Griffin and Bartholomew 1994). Although the interview proved to be the most reliable method, researchers tended to gravitate toward the less time-consuming, albeit less reliable, selfreport surveys. The four-paragraph measure (RQ, Relationship Questionnaire) was modeled from Hazan and Shaver’s three-category measure with an additional paragraph describing the dismissing category (see below). Participants were typically asked to rate each of the four categories on a Likert scale from “not at all like me” to “very much like me” and then choose the one category from the four that was “most like them.” The Relationship Scale Questionnaire (RSQ) was simply a list of the 17 statements from the RQ, and participants were asked to rate each of the items on a Likert scale from “not at all like me” to “very much like me.” The four scales were computed by averaging the items. The paragraphs from the RQ categories (Griffin and Bartholomew 1994) are as follows: Secure: It is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I don’t worry about being alone or having others not accept me. Fearful: I am somewhat uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely or to depend on them. I sometimes worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others. Preoccupied: I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them. Dismissing: I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me. Attachment Theory Personal relationship researchers were concerned with the reliability of early measures, but they were also drawn to the concept of adult attachment, and the early 1990s saw a wave of studies proposing new measures of attachment. Brennan et al. (1998) collated the items from these attachment measures (323 items which assessed 60 attachment constructs from 14 different scales) and proposed a new measure the Experiences of Close Relationship scale (ECR). The ECR has two orthogonal dimensions (attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) and improved reliability over the RSQ. The ECR-R (Fraley et al. 2000) attempted to correct some of the limitations of the ECR; however, both the ECR and the ECR-R proved to be inadequate measures of security and imprecise assessments of Bartholomew’s four-category model (see Mikulincer and Shaver 2007) – both scales are imperfect due to the limitations of the existing item pool. Although these measures – Bartholomew’s RSQ, the ECR and ECR-R – continue to be well used in the literature, researchers continue to work on improving questionnaire measures of adult attachment (see Scharfe 2016). Are Adult Close Relationship Attachment Relationships? Despite the fact that Bowlby asserted that attachment representations were important across the lifespan and that a change of attachment figures would be observed in adolescence and adulthood, there is some controversy about who serves as attachment figures in adulthood. Personal relationship researchers have insisted that adult romantic partners and friends as well as family members may serve as attachment figures. Considerable work has provided empirical support that lovers, friends, and family members serve as attachment figures for adults. This line of research began with a listing of reasons why adult love relationships may be attachment relationships in Hazan and Shaver’s (1987) seminal article. Since that time, personal relationship researchers have demonstrated that one can observe attachment behaviors in adult relationships (i.e., proximity 7 seeking, proximity maintenance, safe haven, secure base), similar to infants and children there are consistent, measureable individual differences in adult attachment; that adults express anxiety if their attachment figure is not accessible; and that adults experience distress if separations from their attachment figures are prolonged. Attachment Internal Working Models and Hierarchies Bowlby (1969/1991) highlighted specific developmental changes in attachment relationships over the lifespan, and the various measures of adult attachment have allowed researchers to begin to explore this feature of his theory more fully. For example, Bowlby proposed that attachment representations started from one primary attachment relationship in infancy, but he acknowledged that early on, often soon after attachment to the primary caregiver was evident, infants would begin to establish the development of attachment relationships to other caregivers. Specifically, infants were proposed to develop a primary attachment with the caregiver who satisfied their basic needs – this primary attachment relationship was the most intense regardless of the number of secondary attachment relationships. Infants and children, however, do receive care from other caregivers, within and outside of their family of origin, and they may also develop secondary attachment bonds to these individuals. Considerable work has provided support that infants and children will develop attachment relationships with adults who are not their primary caregiver. During these early years, attachment relationships are typically unidirectional – the caregiver fulfills the attachment needs of the child. By the time we reach adolescence and adulthood, most individuals have multiple attachment relationships which are organized into a “state of mind” or internal working model, and these relationships can be reciprocal (i.e., both individuals fulfill and provide attachment needs). Furthermore, Bowlby proposed that in adulthood, there would be a “change of the figures towards whom the 8 [attachment] behavior is directed” (1969/1991, p. 179) and that adolescents and adults tend to organize their attachment relationships into a hierarchy. Bowlby (1969/1991) proposed that during adolescence, the child’s attachment to their parents would change due to the importance of other adults in the child’s life as well as the sexual attraction to their peers. There has been considerable research exploring the change of attachment from parents to peers initiated by Hazan and Zeifman (1994). They reported that, between the ages of 8 and 14 years, adolescents reported that they approached peers for proximity and safe haven functions and parents for secure base functions (see also Nickerson and Nagle 2005). They also noted that during late adolescence (15–17 years), those individuals who had formed peer romantic relationships were less likely to approach their parents for attachment functions (see also Mayseless 2004; Nickerson and Nagle 2005), although research findings have not been consistent on this point. Consistent with Bowlby’s suggestion that, for most individuals, the bond with parents would continue throughout life, researchers have found that one’s mother, in particular, continues to be an important attachment figure throughout the lifespan (Pitman and Scharfe 2010). Bowlby (1969/1997) also proposed that individuals, regardless of age, would organize their attachment relationships into a hierarchy and would demonstrate a preference for a primary attachment figure. Over the past two decades, several researchers have found support that individuals do tend to organize their attachment relationships into hierarchies, and these findings have been found across the lifespan in several diverse samples (e.g., Doherty and Feeney 2004; Pitman and Scharfe 2010; Trinke and Bartholomew 1997). Interestingly, mothers tend to be listed at or near the top of the attachment hierarchy across the lifespan. Attachment Stability Paradoxically, Bowlby (1980/1991) proposed that once formed, attachment representations would Attachment Theory remain stable but could also change over the lifespan. Specifically, he proposed that once formed, internal working models of attachment would remain relatively stable in adulthood; however, he highlighted that changes may occur during development (see Del Giudice 2009; Del Giudice and Belsky 2010 for an evolutionary explanation for these changes) but may also change in adulthood in reaction to particularly traumatic events (see Scharfe 2003 for a summary of the lifespan research). Researchers have demonstrated that parent-infant attachment shows moderate-to-high stability (e.g., Waters 1978) and that change is likely when infants’ caregiving environments change (e.g., Thompson et al. 1982; Vaughn et al. 1979). In particular, there is some evidence that it is important to determine how sensitively changes were managed (e.g., NICHD Early Child Care Research Network 2001). Similar findings have been reported exploring stability of attachment throughout childhood (e.g., Howes and Hamilton 1992). Bowlby (1973/1991) proposed that by adulthood, attachment representations would be well developed and more “constrained” and less adaptive to change. Over the past few decades, researchers have reported moderate-to-high stability of adult attachment representations regardless of the method of assessment (e.g., Scharfe and Bartholomew 1994). To date, several studies have examined the stability of attachment from infancy to adulthood and have found moderate stability when social environments remain relatively stable (e.g., Waters et al. 2000). Conclusion Bowlby’s theory of attachment includes several important foundational constructs including the proposal that attachment behavior was instinctual and important across the lifespan. He also described characteristic attachment behaviors and individual differences in attachment as well as both adaptive and maladaptive care environments. 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