Is it all your mother’s fault? Show
No matter what the “it” refers to, Sigmund Freud would have probably said yes to that question. However, we now know a lot more about psychology, parenting, and human relationships than Freud did. It’s clear now that not every issue can be traced back to one’s mother. After all, there is another person involved in the raising (or at least the creation) of a child. In addition, there are many other important people in a child’s life who influence him or her. There are siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, godparents, close family friends, nannies, daycare workers, teachers, peers, and others who interact with a child on a regular basis. The question posed above is tongue-in-cheek, but it touches upon an important discussion in psychology—what influences children to turn out the way they do? What affects their ability to form meaningful, satisfying relationships with those around them? What factors contribute to their experiences of anxiety, avoidance, and fulfillment when it comes to relationships? Although psychologists can pretty conclusively say that it’s not entirely the mother’s fault or even the fault of both parents, we know that a child’s early experiences with their parents have a profound impact on their relationship skills as adults. Much of the knowledge we have on this subject today comes from a concept developed in the 1950s called attachment theory. This theory will be the focus of this article: We’ll explore what it is, how it describes and explains behavior, and what its applications are in the real world. Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Relationships Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients build healthy, life-enriching relationships. What is Attachment Theory? A DefinitionThe psychological theory of attachment was first described by John Bowlby, a psychoanalyst who researched the effects of separation between infants and their parents (Fraley, 2010). Bowlby hypothesized that the extreme behaviors infants engage in to avoid separation from a parent or when reconnecting with a physically separated parent—like crying, screaming, and clinging—were evolutionary mechanisms. Bowlby thought these behaviors had possibly been reinforced through natural selection and enhanced the child’s chances of survival. These attachment behaviors are instinctive responses to the perceived threat of losing the survival advantages that accompany being cared for and attended to by the primary caregiver(s). Since the infants who engaged in these behaviors were more likely to survive, the instincts were naturally selected and reinforced over generations. These behaviors make up what Bowlby termed an “attachment behavioral system,” the system that guides us in our patterns and habits of forming and maintaining relationships (Fraley, 2010). Research on Bowlby’s theory of attachment showed that infants placed in an unfamiliar situation and separated from their parents will generally react in one of three ways upon reunion with the parents:
In later years, researchers added a fourth attachment style to this list: the disorganized-disoriented attachment style, which refers to children who have no predictable pattern of attachment behaviors (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). It makes intuitive sense that a child’s attachment style is largely a function of the caregiving the child receives in his or her early years. Those who received support and love from their caregivers are likely to be secure, while those who experienced inconsistency or negligence from their caregivers are likely to feel more anxiety surrounding their relationship with their parents. However, attachment theory takes it one step further, applying what we know about attachment in children to relationships we engage in as adults. These relationships (particularly intimate and/or romantic relationships) are also directly related to our attachment styles as children and the care we received from our primary caregivers (Firestone, 2013). The development of this theory gives us an interesting look into the study of child development. Bowlby and Ainsworth: The History and Psychology of Attachment TheoryBowlby’s interest in child development traces back to his first experiences out of college, in which he volunteered at a school for maladjusted children. According to Bowlby, two children sparked his curiosity and drive that laid the foundations of attachment theory. There was an isolated and distant teenager who had no stable mother figure in his life and had recently been expelled from his school for stealing, and an anxious 7- or 8-year-old boy who followed Bowlby wherever he went, earning himself a reputation as Bowlby’s “shadow” (Bretherton, 1992). Through his work with children, Bowlby developed a strong belief in the impact of family experiences on children’s emotional and behavioral wellbeing. Early on in his career, Bowlby proposed that psychoanalysts working with children should take a holistic perspective, considering children’s living environments, families, and other experiences in addition to any behaviors exhibited by the children themselves. This idea grew into a strategy of helping children by helping their parents, a generally effective strategy given the importance of the child’s relationships with their parents (or other caregivers). At roughly the same time Bowlby was creating the foundations for his theory on attachment, Mary Ainsworth was finishing her graduate degree and studying security theory, which proposed that children need to develop a secure dependence on their parents before venturing out into unfamiliar situations. In 1950, the two crossed paths when Ainsworth took a position in Bowlby’s research unit at the Tavistock Clinic in London. Her initial responsibilities included analyzing records of children’s behavior, which inspired her to conduct her own studies on children in their natural settings. Through several papers, numerous research studies, and theories that were discarded, altered, or combined, Bowlby and Ainsworth developed and provided evidence for attachment theory. Theirs was a more rigorous explanation and description of attachment behavior than any others on the topic at the time, including those that had grown out of Freud’s work and those that were developed in direct opposition to Freud’s ideas (Bretherton, 1992). Research and StudiesThere were several groundbreaking studies that contributed to the development of attachment theory or provided evidence for its validity, including the study described earlier in which infants were separated from their primary caregivers and their behavior was observed to fall into a “style” of attachment. Further findings on emotional attachment came from a surprising place: rhesus monkeys. The Harlow ExperimentsIn the 1950s, Harry Harlow was conducting experiments on love and relationships between parents and children, specifically monkey parents and children.His work showed that motherly love was emotional rather than physiological, that the capacity for attachment is heavily dependent upon experiences in early childhood, and that this capacity was unlikely to change much after it was “set” (Herman, 2012). Harlow discovered these interesting findings by conducting two groundbreaking experiments. In the first experiment, Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth. Each monkey was instead raised by two inanimate surrogate “mothers.” Both provided the infant monkeys with the milk they needed to survive, but one was made out of wire mesh while the other was wire mesh covered with soft terry cloth. The monkeys who were given the freedom to choose which mother to associate with almost always chose to take milk from the terry cloth “mother.” This finding showed that infant attachment is not simply a matter of where they get their milk—other factors are at play. For his second experiment, Harlow modified his original setup. The monkeys were given either the bare wire mesh surrogate mother or the terry cloth mother, both of which provided the milk the monkeys needed to grow. Both groups of monkeys survived and thrived physically, but they displayed extremely different behavioral tendencies. Those with a terry cloth mother returned to the surrogate when presented with strange, loud objects, while those with a wire mesh mother would throw themselves to the floor, clutch themselves, rock back and forth, or even “scream in terror.” This provided a clear indication that emotional attachment in infancy, gained through cuddling, affected the monkey’s later responses to stress and emotion regulation (Herman, 2012). These two experiments laid the foundations for further work on attachment in children and the impacts of attachment experiences in later life. Erik EriksonErik Erikson’s research trajectory was parallel to Bowlby and Ainsworth’s but came from a different perspective.Erikson’s work was based on Freud’s original personality theories and drew from his idea of the ego. However, Erikson placed more importance on context from culture and society than on Freud’s focus on the conflict between the id and the superego. In addition, his stages of development are based on how children socialize and how it affects their sense of self rather than on sexual development. The eight stages of psychosocial development according to Erikson are:
Although it does not map completely onto attachment theory, Erikson’s findings are clearly related to the attachment styles and behaviors Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Harlow identified. Attachment Theory in Babies, Infants, and Early Childhood DevelopmentAccording to Bowlby and Ainsworth, attachments with the primary caregiver develop during the first 18 months or so of the child’s life, starting with instinctual behaviors like crying and clinging (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). These behaviors are quickly directed at one or a few caregivers in particular, and by 7 or 8 months old, children usually start protesting against the caregiver(s) leaving and grieve for their absence. Once children reach the toddler stage, they begin forming an internal working model of their attachment relationships. This internal working model provides the framework for the child’s beliefs about their own self-worth and how much they can depend on others to meet their needs. In Bowlby and Ainsworth’s view, the attachment styles that children form based on their early interactions with caregivers form a continuum of emotion regulation, with anxious-avoidant attachment at one end and anxious-resistant at the other. Secure attachment falls at the midpoint of this spectrum, between overly organized strategies for controlling and minimizing emotions and the uncontrolled, disorganized, and ineffectively managed emotions. The most recently added classification, disorganized-disoriented, may display strategies and behaviors from all across the spectrum, but generally, they are not effective in controlling their emotions and may have outbursts of anger or aggression (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2004). Research has shown that there are many behaviors in addition to emotion regulation that relates to a child’s attachment style. Among other findings, there is evidence of the following connections:
It is easy to see from these descriptions of behaviors and emotion regulation how attachment style in childhood can lead to relationship problems in adulthood. Attachment Theory in Adults: Close Relationships, Parenting, Love, and DivorceIndeed, it is clear how these attachment styles in childhood lead to attachment types in adulthood. Below is an explanation of the four attachment types in adult relationships. Examples: The Types, Styles, and Stages (Secure, Avoidant, Ambivalent, and Disorganized)The adult attachment styles follow the same general pattern described above:
Each of these styles should be thought of as a continuum of attachment behaviors, rather than a specific “type” of person. Someone with a generally secure attachment style may on occasion display behaviors more suited to the other types, or someone with a dismissive-avoidant style may form a secure bond with a particular person. Therefore, these “types” should be considered a way to describe and understand an individual’s behavior rather than an exact description of someone’s personality. Based on a person’s attachment style, the way he or she approaches intimate relationships, marriage, and parenting can vary widely. The number of ways in which this theory can be applied or used to explain behavior is compounded and expanded by the fact that relationships require two (or more) people; any attachment behaviors that an individual displays will impact and be influenced by the attachment behaviors of other people. Given the huge variety of individuals, behaviors, and relationships, it is not surprising that there is so much conflict and confusion. It is also not surprising, although no less unfortunate, that many relationships end up in divorce or dissolution, an event that may continue an unhealthy cycle of attachment in the children of these unions. Attachment Theory in Grief and TraumaSpeaking of unfortunate situations, attachment theory also has applications in the understanding of the grief and trauma associated with loss. Although you may be most familiar with Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief, they were preceded by Bowlby’s Four Stages. During Bowlby’s work on attachment, he and his colleague Colin Murray Parkes noticed four stages of grief:
Of course, one’s attachment style will influence how grief is experienced as well. For example, someone who is secure may move through the stages fairly quickly or skip some altogether, while someone who is anxious or avoidant may get stuck on one of the stages. We all experience grief differently, but viewing these experiences through the lens of attachment theory can bring new perspective and insight into our unique grieving processes and why some of us get “stuck” after a loss. The Attachment Theory TestIf you’re interested in learning about your attachment style, there are many tests, scales, and questionnaires out available for you to take. Feeny, Noller, and Hanrahan developed the Original Attachment Three-Category Measure in 1987 to test respondents’ adult attachment style. It contains only three items and is very simple, but it can still give you a good idea of which category you fall into: avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, or secure. You can complete the measure yourself or read more about it on page 3 of this PDF. Bartholomew and Horowitz’s Relationships Questionnaire added to The Three-Category Measure by expanding it to include the dismissive-avoidant category. You can find it on the same PDF as the Three-Category Measure, starting on page 3. Fraley, Waller, and Brennan’s Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire-Revised (ECR-R) is a 32-item questionnaire that gives results measured by two subscales related to attachment: avoidance and anxiety (Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000). Items are rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). You can find this questionnaire on the final three pages of the PDF mentioned above. In addition to these scales, there are several less rigorous attachment style tests that can help you learn about your own style of connecting with others. These aren’t instruments often used in empirical research, but they can be helpful tools for learning more about yourself and your attachment style. Diane Poole Heller developed an Attachment Styles Test, which contains 45 items rated on a three-point scale from “Rarely/Never” to “Usually/Often.” You can find it here, although after completing it you must enter an email to receive your results. The Relationship Attachment Style Test is a 50-item test hosted on Psychology Today’s website. It covers the four attachment types noted earlier (Secure, Anxious-Ambivalent, Dismissive-Avoidant, Fearful-Avoidant) as well as Dependent and Codependent attachment styles. If you are interested in taking this test, you can find it at this link. However, be aware that while you receive a free “snapshot report” at the end, you will need to pay to see your full results. Using Attachment Theory in the Classroom (Worksheet and PDF)Because of its importance to child development, attachment theory has major implications for the classroom.One of the ways in which the principles and concepts of attachment theory have been effectively applied to teaching is the practice of emotion coaching.
Emotion coaching is more about supporting children in learning about and regulating their own emotions and behavior than it is about “coaching” in the traditional sense. In emotion coaching, teachers are not required—or even encouraged—to promote proper behavior through rewards or punishments. Instead, emotion coaching involves:
According to attachment theory expert Dr. John Gottman, there are five steps to emotion coaching, and they can be practiced by parents, teachers, or any significant adult in a child’s life:
To learn more about emotion coaching and improve your skills as a parent or teacher, try the following activity. What Would an Emotion Coach Do?This short, two-page activity from the Somerset Emotion Coaching Project can help you enhance your understanding of what emotion coaching is—and what it is not. There are five scenarios presented along with six potential responses. Your task is to read the scenario and decide which response(s) is/are the appropriate emotion coaching response(s). The first scenario is: “Angry pupil over not wanting to attend a compulsory revision session.” Your options include:
This is an excellent activity to do in groups, as you can discuss each option with others and hear different perspectives from your own. In addition to identifying the emotion coaching response(s), you can also discuss which options are dismissive, avoidant, etc. You can see the rest of the scenarios and try your hand at this activity by clicking here (an automatic download will start when you click on the link). Emotion Coaching ScriptsAnother great resource from the Somerset Emotion Coaching Project, this activity gives you a chance to practice brainstorming emotion coaching-appropriate responses. As an added bonus, you can use the scripts you develop to guide you the next time you encounter a situation like those described. There are six scenarios which you are instructed to create a script for:
For each scenario, the instructions encourage you to:
Completing this worksheet provides you with an excellent opportunity to think, plan, and prepare for effective emotion coaching. You can download this activity for your own use here (an automatic download will start when you click on the link). If you’re interested in learning more about applying attachment theory to teaching, check out Louis Cozolino’s book Attachment-Based Teaching: Creating a Tribal Classroom. He puts forth a simple but potentially game-changing idea: Relationships are the key to better performance rather than rigidly structured curricula. Attachment Theory in Social WorkEmotion coaching can also be used by social workers, to some extent. However, the application of attachment theory to social work is more significant in the three key messages that it espouses:
Of course, there are many ways to apply attachment theory to working with children, especially those who are in the midst of family crises. However, if these three points are attended to, you’ll have the most important bases covered. For social workers who work with adults, there are some different strategies and key points to keep in mind, specifically:
Criticisms of Attachment TheoryAs with any popular theory in psychology, there are several criticisms that have been raised against it. Chief among them are the following criticisms:
Although some of these criticisms have faded over time as the theory is injected with new evidence and updated concepts, it is useful to look at any theory with a critical eye. Recommended Books, Articles, and EssaysA few of the most popular books on attachment theory can be found below:
There are also several great websites that host insightful essays and informative articles about attachment theory and its applications, including:
A Take-Home MessageThis piece tackled attachment theory, a theory developed by John Bowlby in the 1950s and expanded upon by Mary Ainsworth and countless other researchers in later years. The theory helps explain how our childhood relationships with our caregivers can have a profound impact on our relationships with others as adults. Although attachment theory may not be able to explain every peculiarity of personality, it lays the foundations for a solid understanding of yourself and those around you when it comes to connecting and interacting with others. What do you think about attachment theory? Do you think there are attachment styles not covered by the four categories? Are there any other criticisms of attachment theory you think are valid and worthy of discussion? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section. We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Relationships Exercises for free.
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