Attachment - Bowlby

Psychologist John Bowlby is generally thought of as the father of attachment theory. He defined attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings." Childhood, he argues, played a critical role in the formation of attachments and early experiences could have an impact on the relationships people form later in life.

The earliest attachments we form are with parents and other caregivers, which is perhaps why Bowlby believed that attachment had a strong evolutionary component. These early attachments with caregivers serve to keep an infant safe and secure and ensures the child's survival.

Bowlby believed that fear of strangers represents an important survival mechanism, built in by nature. Babies are born with the tendency to display certain innate behaviours (called social releasers) which help ensure proximity and contact with the mother or attachment figure (e.g. crying, smiling, crawling).

The juvenile thieves study (Bowlby, 1944):

Bowlby tested his maternal deprivation hypothesis on a sample of 88 children who had been referred to a child guidance clinic. 44 of the children had been referred because of stealing, and Bowlby identified 16 of the thieves as 'affectionless psychopaths' (a behaviour disorder in which the individual has no sense of shame or guilt and lacks a social conscience). The other 44 children had not committed any crimes and, although they had some emotional difficulties, were not anti-social and none were affectionless psychopaths.

Bowlby interviewed all 88 children and their families, focusing specifically on their early life experiences. The findings were that 86% of the children diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths had experienced prolonged periods of separation from their mothers, only 17% of the other thieves had experienced separations from their mothers, and less than 4% of the non-thieves control group had experienced such separations.

As the chlldren with affectionless psychopathy had experienced most separations, Bowlby concluded that maternal deprivation does in fact lead to emotional and behavioural disorders, and in its most severe form it leads to antisocial behaviours such as theft.

The study does therefore seem to support Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis. However it must be remembered that the findings are correlational and therefore, although affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation are linked, maternal deprivation cannot be said to cause affectionless psychopathy. Also the data was collected retrospectively so may not be reliable as, for example, the people Bowlby interviewed may have overestimated or underestimated the frequency and duration of separations.
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