REDONE Discuss Bowlby S Work On Attachment
Discuss Bowlby’s work on attachment. Refer to the work of at least one other researcher in your answer. (12 marks)
Attachment theory was developed in the 1950’s by psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who defined attachment as a ‘lasting psychological connectedness between human beings’. Whilst working with James Robertson in 1952, he observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers and if fed by other caregivers, the child’s anxiety did not diminish. This led to his theories of attachment differentiating from the paradigmatic theories of Behaviourism, which suggested that attachment formation was a product of feeding; a theory also provided by Sigmund Freud in the 19th century regarding the oral stage of psychosexual development.
Instead, Bowlby believed that attachments form due to care and responsiveness of the caregiver in response to the infant’s attachment behaviours such as crying, following, smiling, clinging and sucking. When successful attachments are formed, the infant will experience an innate desire for proximity seeking (the desire to be close to the person to whom you are attached) and if proximity is threatened by separation, insecurity or fear then the instinctive attachment behaviours are activated to try and regain proximity. When proximity is achieved and the feeling of security is high, the care giver acts as a secure base for exploration and a safe place to return to if needed.
Similarly to Freud, Bowlby believed that childhood experiences contribute greatly to our adult behaviours and he proposed that early attachments provide a template that allows us to build other attachments in later life. He called this template the ‘internal working model’. Early attachments are our first feel for what constitutes an emotional bond and we use this in later life as a basis for other attachments.
According to Bowlby, attachment is innate and a result of evolutionary selection pressure. This theory was based on the
Attachment theory was developed in the 1950’s by psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who defined attachment as a ‘lasting psychological connectedness between human beings’. Whilst working with James Robertson in 1952, he observed that children experienced intense distress when separated from their mothers and if fed by other caregivers, the child’s anxiety did not diminish. This led to his theories of attachment differentiating from the paradigmatic theories of Behaviourism, which suggested that attachment formation was a product of feeding; a theory also provided by Sigmund Freud in the 19th century regarding the oral stage of psychosexual development.
Instead, Bowlby believed that attachments form due to care and responsiveness of the caregiver in response to the infant’s attachment behaviours such as crying, following, smiling, clinging and sucking. When successful attachments are formed, the infant will experience an innate desire for proximity seeking (the desire to be close to the person to whom you are attached) and if proximity is threatened by separation, insecurity or fear then the instinctive attachment behaviours are activated to try and regain proximity. When proximity is achieved and the feeling of security is high, the care giver acts as a secure base for exploration and a safe place to return to if needed.
Similarly to Freud, Bowlby believed that childhood experiences contribute greatly to our adult behaviours and he proposed that early attachments provide a template that allows us to build other attachments in later life. He called this template the ‘internal working model’. Early attachments are our first feel for what constitutes an emotional bond and we use this in later life as a basis for other attachments.
According to Bowlby, attachment is innate and a result of evolutionary selection pressure. This theory was based on the