John Bowlby's Theory Of Attachment

The concept of attachment was first introduced by John Bowlby (1969), who emphasizes the importance of mother-child relationship. Attachment is the close, enduring emotional bond to parents or other caregiver, and it is necessary for normal social and emotional development. Mary Ainsworth further expanded upon Bowlby’s attachment theory in her “Strange Situation” study. She concluded that there were three styles of attachment: secure, resistant, and avoidant. A fourth attachment style was later added by researchers, known as disorganized. Despite the growing literature on attachment theory, a great number of questions about attachment theory still remain unanswered. Ethical issues, limitations of early attachment studies, as well as future
However, one might wonder how do fathers or other caregivers play a role in the attachment theory? Can infants form attachment simultaneously with more than one attachment figure? Studies of attachment began to show that fathers can also play a significant role in attachment relationship with their infants and children. Studies also indicated that infants can form different attachment relationships with their mothers and fathers, with some infants showed more secured attachment to their fathers than to their mothers as opposite to others who showed more secured attachment to their mothers than to their fathers (Main, 1995). If this is the case, it would be interesting to observe young children who have multiple attachment figures in the strange situations, and to see which attachment figure they treat as a secure base to explore the unfamiliar surroundings, and how do children behave if one attachment figure is present and another is absent when a stranger is present. Researchers suggest that non-parents can also become attachment figures for infants and toddlers. For example, children on kibbutzim in Israel not only form attachment to their mothers and fathers, but also the metapelets who look after them regularly (Oppenheim, Sagi, & Lamb, 1988). In China, it is not uncommon for grandparents to take care of the grandchildren. Longitudinal studies that follow children who are raised by grandparent(s) can inform us the importance of attaching to a caregiver during child development. From an evolutionary viewpoint, it makes sense for infants to form attachment with an attachment figure because infants cannot survive without proper and responsive care.
Another crucial aspect of attachment theory is the concept of internal working model of attachment that are formed through repeated interactions with attachment figures. Children develop mental representation of self, attachment figures, and schema for