attachment theory: a standalone construct

John Bowlby introduced attachment theory in a 1958 paper, The nature of the child's tie to his mother, and set it out in full in his 1969 volume Attachment and Loss, proposing that an infant forms a deep, enduring emotional bond to a primary caregiver through an evolved behavioural system that keeps the vulnerable child close to a protector. Mary Ainsworth turned the idea into something observable and measurable: her 'Strange Situation' procedure, reported with Bell in 1970 and elaborated in her later work, classified the quality of the bond by watching how a one-year-old reacts to brief separations from, and reunions with, the caregiver, distinguishing a secure pattern from insecure ones. In the theory the caregiver functions as a secure base from which the child explores and a safe haven to return to under stress, and repeated experience of the caregiver's responsiveness is carried forward as internalised expectations, later called internal working models, that shape how a person relates to others. What makes attachment theory a landmark is its scope: within one framework it ties early caregiving experience, an evolved survival function, and measurable individual differences, and the framework has since been extended from infancy to adult close relationships. The word attachment carries other, looser meanings in everyday and technical use, for example a file attached to a message, which are not the construct described here.[1][2][3][4]

Unit

A theoretical construct: an emotional bond and its measurable individual differences, classified as secure or insecure attachment

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by structured observation such as Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure in infancy, and by interview and self-report measures, for example the Adult Attachment Interview and self-report attachment scales, in older children and adults