Chapter 105. Attachment

1. Attachment is a special emotional bond with another person. In developmental psychology, researchers typically study the attachment relationship between an infant and the parents, especially the parent who is the primary caregiver.

2. In many animals, early contact between mother and infant can be crucial for attachment. This contact releases hormones that trigger maternal feelings and allows the mother to recognize the infant’s smell, while, at the same time, allowing the infant to form a memory of the mother’s distinctive characteristics. In an extreme example of this process, some bird species (such as these ducks) exhibit imprinting—an automatic and instantaneous bond between the offspring and its mother—if initial contact occurs within a special time called a critical period, which, in the case of ducks, is the first few hours after birth.

3. Imprinting doesn’t occur in human infants, although humans do seem programmed from birth to respond to any human face or voice. This may help an infant survive by promoting contact with other people—for instance, turning in the direction of a voice and gazing at a human face, or grasping a person’s clothes or hair, or crying to attract attention.

4. Sometime after 6 months of age, the situation changes. Almost all babies begin to respond to their primary caregivers in a special way, forming a specific attachment bond. Infants around 8 months of age begin to show stranger anxiety (fear in the presence of an unfamiliar person) and separation distress (depressed, anxious behavior when the primary caregiver leaves). When a babysitter or substitute caregiver arrives, these infant behaviors obviously can cause problems.

5. At one time, psychologists believed that infants become attached to their caregivers because the caregivers provide nourishment. The sight, sound, and smell of the caregiver become associated with the pleasure of eating. However, a series of studies by psychologists Harry and Margaret Harlow, using infant monkeys, revealed that attachment usually grows from close body contact with caregivers rather than by association with feeding.

6. How did the Harlows study attachment? The monkey infants, separated at birth from their mothers, were fed from bottles attached to one of two "artificial mothers." Both "mothers" had a wooden head attached to a wire body, but one had foam rubber and terry cloth covering the wire. Regardless of which "mother" provided the nourishment, the monkeys overwhelmingly became attached to the cloth-covered mother—the one that provided soft, warm body contact.

7. Finally, researcher Mary Ainsworth claimed that not all attachment bonds are alike. She developed a laboratory procedure, called the Strange Situation, for measuring the strength and security of attachment. Research assistants filmed the infants' reactions to the comings and goings of their caregivers and to friendly strangers. Ainsworth found that about two-thirds of infants develop a secure attachment to their caregiver, while others develop a less satisfactory relationship called insecure attachment.

8. Erik Erikson, an influential developmental theorist, argued that the characteristics of the caregiver play a crucial role in forming the attachment bond. Infants with sensitive, loving caregivers form not only a secure attachment but also a lifelong attitude of basic trust—a sense that the world, and the people in it, are predictable and reliable. In contrast, children who suffer parental neglect or abuse will develop insecure attachment relationships that could last into adolescence and adulthood.