Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

tion sensitivity.
In a set of three different volumes, John Bowlby theorized that humans were born with a set of inherent
behaviors designed to allow proximity with supportive others. 95 These behaviors were called attachment
behaviors, and the supportive others were called attachment figures. Inherent in Bowlby’s model of
attachment is that humans have a biological drive to attach themselves with others. For example, a baby’s
crying and searching help the baby find their attachment figure (typically a parent/guardian) who can provide
care, protection, and support. Infants (and adults) view attachment as an issue of whether an attachment
figure is nearby, accessible, and attentive? Bowlby believed that these interpersonal models, which
were developed in infancy through thousands of interactions with an attachment figure, would influence
an individual’s interpersonal relationships across their entire life span. According to Bowlby, the basic
internal working model of affection consists of three components. 96 Infants who bond with their attachment
figure during the first two years develop a model that people are trustworthy, develop a model that
informs the infant that he or she is valuable, and develop a model that informs the infant that he or she is
effective during interpersonal interactions. As you can easily see, not developing this model during infancy
leads to several problems.
If there is a breakdown in an individual’s relationship with their attachment figure (primarily one’s
mother), then the infant would suffer long-term negative consequences. Bowlby called his ideas on the
importance of mother-child attachment and the lack thereof as the .
Bowlby hypothesized that maternal deprivation occurred as a result of separation from or loss of one’s
mother or a mother’s inability to develop an attachment with her infant. This attachment is crucial during
the first two years of a child’s life. Bowlby predicted that children who were deprived of attachment (or
had a sporadic attachment) would later exhibit delinquency, reduced intelligence, increased aggression,
depression, and – the inability to show affection or care about others.
In 1991, Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz expanded on Bowlby’s work developing a
scheme for understanding adult attachment. 97 In this study, Bartholomew and Horowitz proposed a
model for understanding adult attachment. On one end of the spectrum, you have an individual’s abstract
image of themself as being either worthy of love and support or not. On the other end of the spectrum,
you have an individual’s perception of whether or not another person will be trustworthy/available or
another person is unreliable and rejecting. When you combine these dichotomies, you end up with four
distinct attachment styles (as seen in Figure 3.10).
The first attachment style is labeled “” because these individuals believe that they are loveable
and expect that others will generally behave in accepting and responsive ways within interpersonal
interactions. Not surprisingly, secure individuals tend to show the most satisfaction, commitment, and
trust in their relationships. The second attachment style, , occurs when someone does
not perceive themself as worthy of love but does generally see people as trustworthy and available for
interpersonal relationships. These individuals would attempt to get others to accept them. The third
attachment style, (sometimes referred to as fearful avoidants 98 ), represents individuals who see
themselves as unworthy of love and generally believe that others will react negatively through either
deception or rejection. These individuals simply avoid interpersonal relationships to avoid being rejected
by others. Even in communication, fearful people may avoid communication because they simply believe
that others will not provide helpful information or others will simply reject their communicative attempts.
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Interpersonal Communication