Attachment theory

Evaluation
Disadvantages
 Myers suggested that immediate physical contact
is not necessary for the development of an
attachment.
 Criticism of imitation studies suggest that babies
are not intentionally social and react in similar
ways to inanimate objects.
 The question of whether imitation is intentional is
Advantages arguable - impact on a child's social development
is unclear.
 Interactional synchrony is not related to the
 Abravanel and DeYong found
security of a relationship - it has been shown that
that 5 and 12 week old babies
mothers in Kenya rarely cuddle or speak to their
would imitate facial expressions
babies even though they meet needs and are
from adult models but not
secure.
photos of the adult models.
 Motherese does enhance communication between
 An infant's capacity for
caregiver and baby but there is not evidence that it
imitation demonstrates that
forms attachment. Adults use parentese all the
they are social beings and allow
time on children they have no attachment to.
attachment to be formed
 Kolunchova demonstrates that even extreme
between adult and child.
privation from caregiver-infant interaction, a bond
can still be form - even though factors allowing
recovery are difficult to distinguish.
 Recent attention has been paid to interactions
between caregivers and infants as to the type of
attachment. Ainsworth suggests that secure
attachments come from how responsive the adult
was. Izjendoorn indicated that there is only a weak
relationship between maternal responsiveness and
attachment type.

Hyunji Kim, Joni Y. Sasaki, in Personality Development Across the Lifespan, 2017

Early childhood

Parent–child attachment styles. Classic work in attachment by Mary Ainsworth

classified American infants according to a set of attachment styles, with secure being
the most common and insecure variations (avoidant, ambivalent) being relatively less
common (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Since then, researchers have set
out to replicate these patterns of attachment styles in different cultures, and although
there are similarities, there are a number of notable differences in attachment
distributions that correspond with differences in cultural practices and values. In some
cultures there seem to be differences, not in the proportion of secure attachment, but
in the prevalent form of insecure attachment. In Japan, the insecurely attached infants
were only insecure-ambivalent (also called insecure-resistant) rather than insecure-
avoidant (Miyake, Chen, & Campos, 1985; Takahashi, 1986), and in Israel, there was
a high frequency of insecure-ambivalent (Sagi et al., 1985); secure attachment was
still the most common attachment style in both cultures. However, in Northern
Germany the most common attachment style was insecure-avoidant, followed by
secure and then insecure-ambivalent (Grossmann, Grossmann, Spangler, Suess, &
Unzner, 1985). The authors of this research suggest that there seem to be differences
in the way mothers interact with their infants in Northern Germany, where the culture
may emphasize status and interpersonal distance even more than in North America,
and these cultural differences may be related to the lower percentage of securely
attached infants in Northern Germany.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/attachment-style