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The Founding of Attachment Theory in Infants

Attachment Theory stemmed from the three volume work, Attachment and Loss, written by John Bowlby who explored the dimensions of attachment, separation, and loss. In Attachment and Loss, Bowlby presented a full understanding of available research to illustrate patterns of attachment from the start of life to death. Levy et al. described attachment theory as a set of ways that a person could relate to an intimate caregiver or attachment figure. Examples of intimate caregivers included parents, therapists, and romantic partners. Attachment theory highlighted different styles of attachment and how each style used the caregiver as a secure base and safe haven that allowed a person to freely explore the world, mentally or physically, but return to for comfort and protection in times of distress.

Ainsworth et al. used Bowlby’s ideas about attachment to explore the relationship between infants and their mothers in an experiment titled “The Strange Situation”. The investigators observed the effects of a mother leaving her one year child alone in a room with a stranger. The authors learned about the infant’s attachment by seeing how the child acts when the mother was absent and how the child treated the mother upon her return. Ainsworth et al. described three different attachment styles they saw in the infants: securely attached, anxiously attached, or avoidant. Before the mother left, the infants actively explored the room and used the mother as a “home base”. Secure and anxiously attached children became easily distressed once the mother left the room and the child was alone with the stranger. The avoidant children were not distressed like secure or anxious children. When the mother returned from her absence, the securely attached infants returned to the same behavior as before. Anxiously attached infants stopped exploring the room and stayed near the mother. Infants who were avoidant turned away from their mother and often favored the stranger more. Attachment theory offered the ability to find underlying dynamics in love between adults. Hazan and Shaver used attachment theory as a framework to explore romantic relationships in adults of all ages. Within their study they found that adults fell into the same attachment categories in romantic relationships that the infants identified as in Ainsworth’s study. Within relationships, they found that ~60% of people were secure in attachment, ~25% were avoidant, and ~15% were anxious. These percentages were the same as Ainsworth’s findings within his study of infant behavior.

Attachment Theory with Interpersonal Relationships and Love

Meyer and Pilkonis outlined that there were two main ways to identify the attachment style of an adult. The first way was through the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) that examined a person’s past and current relationships. The interview provided clues about their attachment style as they narrated their own experiences. The second way was through a brief questionnaire that measured the participant’s mental model of themself and their mental model of other people. Those with an unstable view of self were anxious in their attachment style while those with an unstable view of others were avoidant in attachment. If the participant was stable in both of those categories then they were secure in attachment. Bowlby later developed ideas to how one gained an unstable view of the self or of others. The view of the self was distorted by personal experiences of failure and rejection. The person became afraid of further failure and lost confidence in their own abilities. This caused the person to avoid taking risks in relationships such as becoming vulnerable with their partner. The avoidant attachment style developed from experiences with the helpfulness of others. If the person learned that others are not going to come when needed or be helpful when present, the person lost trust with others. Hazan and Shaver found that attachment styles are being constantly shaped by experiences and continue to change with age.

Both the AAI and self reporting questionnaire used ideas established by Hazan and Shaver to formulate how people would act in relationships. Secure attachment characterized the foundations of love to be trust, friendship, and positive emotions. Securely attached people often believed in enduring love, where they viewed both others and themselves as likable and trustworthy. Anxiously attached individuals saw love as a preoccupying and painful experience to go through. Avoidant individuals relied on passion to fuel their love, but since passion fades with time they did not believe love was enduring or that they needed a long relationship to be happy. Both anxious and avoidant individuals then tended to fall in love often but had difficulty finding a sense of “true love” that secure individuals had in relationships.