3. Attachment. Theories of attachment

Psychoanalytic approach

According to Freud, babies are initially attached to their mothers because their mothers are a source of food as well as a source of comfort and warmth.

The evidence indicates strongly that attachment behaviour in babies does not depend only on the provision of food. Harry Harlow carried out a series of well-known studies on very young monkeys. These monkeys had to choose between two surrogate (or substitute) mothers, one of which was made of wire and the other of which was covered in cloth. Milk was provided by the wire mother for some of the monkeys, whereas it was provided by the cloth mother for the others. The findings were clear-cut. The monkeys spent most of their time clinging to the cloth mother, presumably because of the "contact comfort" she provided. Freud's notion that the first attachment is to a food source was not supported. The monkeys spent little time on the wire mother even when she Supplied milk.

It could be argued that Harlow's work on monkeys is not relevant to the study of human attachment. However, Schaffer and Emerson , in the study mentioned earlier, found with about 40% of humans infants that the adult who fed, bathed, and changed the infant was not the person to whom the infant was most attached. Once again, there is not the simple link between food and attachment behaviour assumed by Freud. Infants were most likely to become attached to adults who were responsive to them, and who provided them with much stimulation in the form of touching and playing.

If we are to develop a full understanding of the attachment between mother and child, it is necessary to have good ways of measuring it. Ainsworth and Bell developed what is known as the "strange situations" test. The infant (normally about 1-year old) is observed during a sequence of eight short episodes. For some of the time, the infant is with its mother, whereas at other times it is with its mother and a stranger, just with a stranger, or entirely on its own. The child's reactions to the stranger, to separation from the mother, and especially to being re-united with its mother are all recorded. These reactions allow the infant's attachment to its mother to be placed in one of three categories:

1. Secure attachment: the infant is distressed by the mother's absence, but it rapidly returns to contentment after the mother's return, immediately seeking contact with her. There is a clear difference in reaction to the mother and to the stranger. About 70% of American infants show secure attachment.

2. Anxious and resistant attachment: the infant is insecure in the presence of the mother, becomes very distressed when the mother leaves, resists contact with the mother after her return, and is wary of the stranger. About 15% of American infants are anxious and resistant.

3. Anxious and avoidant attachment: the infant does not seek contact with the motlier, shows little distress when separated from the mother, and avoids contact with the mother upon her return. The infant tieats the stranger in a similar way to the mother, often avoiding or ignoring him or her. About 15% of American infants are anxious and avoidant.

Why do some infants have a secure attachment with their mother, whereas others do not? According to Ainsworth’s caregiving hypothesis, the sensitivity of the mother (or other caregiver) is of crucial importance. Most of the mothers of securely attached infants are very sensitive to their needs, and are emotionally expressive. The mothers of anxious attend resistant infants are interested in them, but often misunderstand their behaviour. Of particular importance, these mothers tend to vary in the way they treat their infants. As a result, the infant cannot rely on the mother's emotional support.

Finally, there are the mothers of anxious and avoidant infants. Many of these mothers are relatively uninterested in their infants, often reject them, and tend to be self-centred and rigid in their behaviour. However, some mothers of anxious and avoidant infants behave rather differently. These mothers act in a rather suffocating way, always interacting with their infants even when they don't want any interaction. What these two types of mothers have in common is that they are not very sensitive to the needs of their infants.

Cultural differences

So far we have discussed findings obtained mainly from the middle-class American culture. However, there are interesting cross-cultural differences in the type of attachment shown by children. This issue was explored by Sagi et al. They used the strange situations test with infants in the United States, Israel, Japan, and Germany. Their findings for the American infants were similar to those mentioned previously: 71% of them showed secure attachment, 12% showed anxious and resistant attachment, and 17% were anxious and avoidant.

The Israeli infants behaved rather differently from the American ones. Secure attachment was shown by 62% of them, 33% were anxious and resistant, and only 5% were anxious and avoidant. These infants were living in a kibbutz or collective farm, and were looked after by strangers much of the time. However, they had a close relationship with their mothers, and so tended not to be anxious and avoidant.

Japanese mothers practically never leave their infants alone with a stranger. In spite of the differences in child-rearing practices in Japan and Israel, the Japanese infants showed similar attachment styles to the Israeli ones. Two-thirds of them (68%) had a secure attachment, 32% were anxious and resistant, and none was anxious and avoidant. The complete absence of anxious and avoidant attachment may have occurred because the infants were faced with the totally new situation of being on their own with a stranger.

Finally, the German infants showed a different pattern of attachment to the other three groups of infants. Only 40% of them were securely attached, which was less than the number of infants (49%) who were anxious and avoidant. The remaining 11 % were anxious and resistant. These findings probably occurred because German mothers display less outward affection towards their children than do mothers in other countries.

The findings of Sagi et al. demonstrate that there are large cross-cultural differences in attachment. However, they also show that the goal of producing securely attached children can be reached in various ways.

Temperament hypothesis: Kagan

Jerome Kagan (1984) argued that the child's attachment to the mother may depend more on the child's temperament or the personality with which it is born than on the mother's behaviour. According to this temperament hypothesis, any given infant should tend to be either securely or insecurely attached to both caregivers (if there are two). In fact, many infants are securely attached to one caregiver but insecurely attached to the other. This indicates that the infant's temperament is not the only important factor.

Goldberg et al. (1986) carried out a study of premature infants which allows us to compare the caregiver and temperament hypotheses. Ratings of the mothers' caregiving behaviour and of the infants' temperament were taken at regular intervals during the infants' first year of life. At the age of 1, the infants were tested on the strange situations test. The findings were good news for the caregiving hypothesis, but bad news for the temperament hypothesis. The type of attachment was predicted well by the mothers' caregiving behaviour, but was not predicted at all by the infants' temperament.

Affiliation

There are similarities between attachment and affiliation. Affiliation refers to social contact and interaction, and it seems that humans have a basic need for affiliation. Schachter (1959) looked at the factors leading to more or less affiliation in young adults rather than the infants we have been considering so far. He told female students they would receive electric shocks. Some of the students were told the shocks would be painful, whereas others were told they would be almost painless. They were then asked to choose whether to wait by themselves or with other participants in the experiment. Of those who were told the shocks would be painful, 61 % chose to wait with others, compared with 33% in the painless shock group. This suggested that we have a greater need for affiliation with others when we are feeling anxious or insecure.

Schachter argued that there were two reasons why the anxious students may have chosen to wait with other participants:

1. Because the other participants provided a distraction from thinking about the expected shocks.

2. Because it was reassuring for them to see how others were coping with the threat of shocks.

Schachter tried to decide between these two reasons by carrying out a second study. In this study, all the participants expected painful shocks. Some of them had to choose between waiting alone or with other participants in the study. Others chose between waiting alone or with female students waiting to see their academic advisors. The participants greatly preferred waiting with other participants to waiting alone, but they did not choose to wait with female students who were not taking part in the study. These findings indicated that the participants wanted to wait with others because they wanted to see how other participants were coping with the threat of shock.

Cutrona (1986) looked at affiliation in a natural setting. College students were asked to keep a daily record of their social interactions and stressful experiences for 14 days. The main finding was that they were very likely to seek out other people when they were feeling stressed.