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Attachment Styles
Background
Attachment styles where initially developed by British psychoanalyst John Bowlby. He observed the distress that infants suffered when being separated from parents during WWII when it was common practice during evacuations and hospital stays. He used these observations to theorise an evolutionary mechanism for survival which is biologically programmed into humans.
He looked at the different strategies the children used to re-establish proximity to their caregivers and called these attachment behaviors. He considered that over the course of evolution infants who were able to maintain closeness to a attachment figure would be more likely to survive infancy.
If a child feels that the attachment figure is nearby then they will feel secure, confident and able to explore the environment. If the child feels that the attachment figure is not close by they experience separation anxiety and exhibit attachment behaviors to try and re-establish closeness. This was further explored by his student Canadian-American psychologist Mary Ainsworth who developed a study called the strange situation to study the different ways that children displayed attachment behavior.
The Strange Situation Study
12 month old infants and their parents where placed in a room and regularly separated then reunited with each other. Most infants (around 60%) would become upset when the parent left, but on their return would actively seek out the parent and be easily comforted by them. We call this secure attachment.
Another group of infants (around 20%) would be more uneasy when first entering the room and then become extremely distressed when the parent left. When the parent returns they become very difficult to comfort, they would use punishing behaviors towards the parent but also want the parent to comfort them. We call this anxious (preoccupied/ambivalent) attachment.
The next group (around 20%) would not appear much distressed when their parent left. However, when the parent returned they would avoid contact and reject comfort. They would often seek out other objects to turn their attention to. We call this avoidant (dismissing) attachment.
In a later study a student of Ainsworth's Mary Main discovered a fourth style. These infants would freeze, become confused and display characteristics of both anxious and avoidant styles when their parent re-entered the room. This is called fearful-avoidant (disorganised) attachment and is most often found in people that have suffered a higher degree of childhood trauma. As infants' continue to use the attachment pattern that best suits their situation, the pattern will become ingrained in their behavior. In adulthood this will be the basis of how they form attachments in intimate relationships.
ANXIOUS
Also known as preoccupied. Parents or caregivers where inconsistent and sometimes intrusive. Unpredictable and erratic, has a tendency to blame others. Pays very close attention to relationships and can be smothering. Has low self-esteem.
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