the origins of attachment theory: john bowlby and mary ainsworth ...

development, as in filial, parental, and sexual imprinting.
Having laid out this general theory of motivation and behavior regulation in the first half of
the volume, Bowlby goes on, in the second half, to apply these ideas to the specific domain of
infant-mother attachment. He defines attachment behavior as behavior that has proximity to an
attachment figure as a predictable outcome and whose evolutionary function is protection of the
infant from danger, insisting that attachment has its own motivation and is in no way derived from
systems subserving mating and feeding.
Although human infants initially direct proximity-promoting signals fairly indiscriminately to
all caregivers, these behaviors become increasingly focused on those primary figures who are
responsive to the infant’s crying and who engage the infant in social interaction (Schaffer &
Emerson, 1964). Once attached, locomotor infants are able to use the attachment figure as a
secure base for exploration of the environment and as a safe haven to which to return for
reassurance (Ainsworth, 1967; Schaffer & Emerson, 1964). How effectively the attachment
figure can serve in these roles depends on the quality of social interaction-especially the
attachment figure’s sensitivity to the infant’s signals-although child factors also play a role.
Building on Ainsworth’s Ganda study (1967) and preliminary findings from her Baltimore
project, Bowlby (1969) comments that:
when interaction between a couple runs smoothly, each party manifests intense pleasure in
the other’s company and especially in the other’s expression of affection. Conversely,
whenever interaction results in persistent conflict each party is likely on occasion to exhibit
intense anxiety or unhappiness, especially when the other is rejecting. Proximity and
affectionate interchange are appraised and felt as pleasurable by both, whereas distance and
expressions of rejection are appraised as disagreeable or painful by both. (p. 242)
During the preschool years, the attachment behavioral system, always complementary to
the parental caregiving system, undergoes further reorganization as the child attains growing in-
sight into the attachment figure’s motives and plans. Bowlby refers to this stage as goal-
corrected partnership. However, in emphasizing infant initiative and sensitive maternal respond-
ing, Bowlby’s (1951) earlier theorizing on the mother as the child’s ego and superego was re-
grettably lost.
Consolidation