DISCUSS THE ROLE OF ATTACHMENT IN CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
...ial aspect of human nature and that an infant’s first attachment is vital to the beginning of their socio-emotional development. He stated that the construct of early attachment laid the foundations for later representational models of self and the formation of other personal relationships. He also claimed an infant’s main relationship with their primary caregiver, which in most cases is their mother is qualitatively different from all other attachments and that this is the reason for its great importance in later development. There is however considerable debate over whether or not this primary bond is universally true and that its is perhaps ethnocentric in it’s construction. Thomas (1998) questions the effectiveness of a tendency to form a single main attachment and suggests that a network of attachments may be more valuable in meeting the various needs of a growing child. He claims that in many cultures such as the Caribbean that infants have many different attachments and it is there differences, which make them effective. A Father’s style of play tends to be more unpredictable and stimulating where as Mothers tend to soothe and console (Parke 1981). Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found from there study that children do indeed from multiple attachments but they usually still have one main primary attachment which provides support for Bowlby’s theory. Ainsworth (1967) studied a tribe from Uganda where childcare involved multiple carers yet also reached the conclusion that children had one primary carer. Tronick, Morelli and Ivey (1992) looked at the Pygmy tribe from Zaire where children live in extended family groups, are breast fed by other member of the tribe, and only return to their mother to sleep next to them. Tronick et al concluded that even by six months the children still preferred their mother. There are various psychological theories as to why infants form attachments yet the theory proposed by Bowlby continues to have an enormous impact on the emotional care of children. Freud’s psychodynamic approach (1926) dictates children form an attachment to caregiver because they satisfy instinctual needs and that it the security of food and libidinal impulses that lead to attachment. He believed unhealthy attachments resulted fro m over or under gratification of these needs. Behaviourists also claim that infants become attached to those who meet their physiological needs and that the attachment is the result of classical conditioning. The caregivers become associated with gratification, which allows them to be conditioned rein forcers, and the sense of gratification generalises to a feeling of security in the presence of the caregiver. However, research in to maternal deprivation by Harlow (1958), Harlow and Harlow (1965) and Harlow and Zimmermann (1959) contradicted both of these theories. Infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers for up to twelve moths and were placed in a cage with which contained and artificial mother. In one condition, the ‘mother’ was no more than a wire frame, in the other, it was covered with towel cloth, and a face was painted. In both condition there was a feeding bottle attached to the ‘mother’. The source of food had little impact on the amount of time spent with each ‘mother’, it was the towel cloth covering which provided comfort, and that the monkey would cling to when distressed and spent the moist time with. Thus leading to the conclusion that comfort is more important than food in the formation of an attachment bond. This experiment therefore only lend itself to Bowlby theory of attachment which is based on the notion attachment can be understood under the framework of evolution and that attaching is an adaptive response. He also claimed caregivers response is genetically programmed. If attachment were therefore purely biological, we would expect, as in the imprinting of animals there to be a critical period. Bowlby claimed if am attachment was not formed by age two and a half years then it would not be possible and if the attachment were not formed, the child would suffer permanent emotional damage especially in terms of their ability to form lasting relationships through out life. In his 44 thieves study Bowlby (1944) found experimental evidence to support this theory. He found many of the children he studied to lack social responsibility and guilt for their dishonest behaviour. He referred to these children as ‘affectionless psychopaths’ and later found that 86% of them had incurred ‘early and prolonged separation from their mothers’. He subsequently concluded that early separations and disruption to attachment bond resulted in emotional maladjustment. However, the methodology of the experiment is often criticised as there was a lack of control groups and sampling and much of the data was collected retrospectively. Bowlby’s theory itself is criticised as it does not explain why some children are able to cope with poor attachment experiences and others aren’t. Bowlby’s notion that early attachments act as a template for all later relationships is questioned by the fact there is a low correlation between parent-child relationships and child-peer relationships. (Howes 1994). Kagan (1982) believes that some children are simply better than others are at forming relationships. What is clear from Bowlby’s theories is there great impact and contribution to the understanding of a child s development. Though there is debate over the exact impact of attachment on a child’s emotiona...