John Bowlby's Attachment Theory Research Paper
Why are we the way we are? It’s a question we ask ourselves constantly throughout our lives. There are many things that happen throughout a life that shapes it, whether we came from a single home with a mother who worked all day and night or if we struggled to feel accepted by peers. Fortunately, there are two widely accepted developmental theories that help us explain this, Maslow’ Hierarchy of Needs and The Attachment Theory. Maslow’s hierarchy is divided into deficiency needs and growth needs and he used these to describe what motivated human behavior. The attachment theory was first developed by John Bowlby, then expanded by Mary Ainsworth with the “Strange Situation.” The attachment theory is positioned around the emotional bonds that
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It was first developed by John Bowlby and focused on the importance of an infant's relationship with their caregiver. Before Bowlby’s theory the agreement was that infants were attached to mothers because they provided them with food, hunger is one of the most distressing things to infants whom need to be fed constantly, and mothers provide them this relief. Bowlby was a theorist and never did his own research, instead focused on research done by Rene Spitz on orphanages and Harry Harlow on rhesus monkeys. Both men proved that food/hunger isn’t the connection that attaches infants to their mothers. Spitz found that even when infants in an orphanage were constantly fed, they lost weight, were lethargic, and didn’t develop positive feelings for the nurse providing the food. The nurse was caring for multiple children and didn’t have time to hold and give attention to the infants. In Harlow’s rhesus monkeys experiment he provided two artificial mothers, one cloth and one metal which provided the food. He discovered that the monkeys only went to the “metal mothers” for food, then spent the rest of their time with the “cloth mother” for solace and care. Bowlby concluded from these experiments that instead of food being the tie between children and mothers it’s instead based on a child’s need for protection and
It was first developed by John Bowlby and focused on the importance of an infant's relationship with their caregiver. Before Bowlby’s theory the agreement was that infants were attached to mothers because they provided them with food, hunger is one of the most distressing things to infants whom need to be fed constantly, and mothers provide them this relief. Bowlby was a theorist and never did his own research, instead focused on research done by Rene Spitz on orphanages and Harry Harlow on rhesus monkeys. Both men proved that food/hunger isn’t the connection that attaches infants to their mothers. Spitz found that even when infants in an orphanage were constantly fed, they lost weight, were lethargic, and didn’t develop positive feelings for the nurse providing the food. The nurse was caring for multiple children and didn’t have time to hold and give attention to the infants. In Harlow’s rhesus monkeys experiment he provided two artificial mothers, one cloth and one metal which provided the food. He discovered that the monkeys only went to the “metal mothers” for food, then spent the rest of their time with the “cloth mother” for solace and care. Bowlby concluded from these experiments that instead of food being the tie between children and mothers it’s instead based on a child’s need for protection and