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Attachment theory

The way you were cared for as a child leaves a mark… but it doesn't write your destiny.

Development · John Bowlby & Mary Ainsworth Evidence: Strong

One of the best-supported theories in developmental psychology. Its application to adult romantic relationships is also supported, although styles are less stable than social media often suggests.

Sound familiar?

Your partner takes a while to reply and you start imagining the worst. Or the opposite: someone gets too close and you feel the urge to pull away. These reactions can have very old roots.

What it is

British psychiatrist John Bowlby proposed that babies are born with a biological need to stay close to someone who looks after and protects them.1 Depending on how that person responds (with availability and warmth, or coldly or unpredictably), the child builds an internal model of what to expect from others and from themselves.

Around the same time, Harry Harlow's experiments with infant monkeys had shown something similar: the infants preferred to spend their time with a soft cloth "mother" rather than a wire one that gave them milk. The bond didn't depend only on food, but on comfort.2

The experiment

Psychologist Mary Ainsworth designed the so-called "Strange Situation": a baby of around one year plays in a room with their mother, a stranger comes in, the mother leaves for a few minutes and then returns.3 The most revealing moment was the reunion:

  • Secure: the baby protests when the mother leaves, seeks her out when she returns, calms down and goes back to playing.
  • Avoidant: seems indifferent and ignores the mother when she returns.
  • Ambivalent or resistant: becomes very distressed and, when the mother returns, seeks comfort but resists it at the same time.

Later, Mary Main and Judith Solomon described a fourth pattern, disorganised, with contradictory or confused behaviour towards the attachment figure.4

What we know today

A meta-analysis with data from several countries found that secure attachment was the most common pattern in every culture studied, although the proportion of insecure types varied from country to country.5

In 1987, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver applied these ideas to adult romantic relationships and found styles similar to those in childhood.6 But a meta-analysis by Chris Fraley showed that the stability of attachment from infancy to adulthood is only moderate: later experiences matter too.7

Myth vs. reality

Myth "I have an avoidant attachment style, so that's just who I am and I can't change."

Reality Attachment isn't a fixed label. Secure relationships, therapy and life experience can change it over time. And quick online tests can't diagnose it.

In everyday life

  • Notice your patterns: what do you feel when someone pulls away, or gets very close?
  • Name the emotion before reacting ("I'm scared they'll leave", "I feel smothered").
  • Security is contagious: surrounding yourself with stable, predictable people helps.

Sources

  1. Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
  2. Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13(12), 673–685. doi.org/10.1037/h0047884
  3. Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the Strange Situation. Lawrence Erlbaum.
  4. Main, M., & Solomon, J. (1990). Procedures for identifying infants as disorganized/disoriented during the Ainsworth Strange Situation. In M. T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E. M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years (pp. 121–160). University of Chicago Press.
  5. van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Kroonenberg, P. M. (1988). Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: A meta-analysis of the Strange Situation. Child Development, 59(1), 147–156. doi.org/10.2307/1130396
  6. Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511–524. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511
  7. Fraley, R. C. (2002). Attachment stability from infancy to adulthood: Meta-analysis and dynamic modeling of developmental mechanisms. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6(2), 123–151. doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0602_03