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Revision as of 12:46, 17 June 2006

False categorization in attachment styles

The current Attachment styles section reads (to me at least) like it was based on a study that started out with three expected results and worked hard to verify them. It jumped out at me because I apparently belong to a fourth category that isn't listed, which for want of a better term I'll call "Unanxious insecure attachment". I've never been particularly attached to my mother (or any family member or friend), and, based on reports from my parents and elder relatives, was that way even as a small child. Nor am I the only one like this. I have a friend whose younger son is so detached from his nevertheless devoted mother that she, trying to understand his detachment even at 3 years old, once watched him (by covertly following him as he wandered off) calmly explore the length of an entire mall before her protective instincts overcame her need to understand her unusual child. (I'd had virtually no contact with this family, so he couldn't have gotten it from me, which also leads me to suspect this characteristic, while it may be uncommon, is far from rare.) I imagine that if either I (as a child) or my friend's child had participated in the study, we would have shown little distinction in exploration behavior regardless of who, if anyone, was in the room, as we both would have been far too self-involved. (Don't bother with the cracks; I freely admit my own asocial behavior.)

Nor was this the only categorical omission I noticed. Surely one might expect a few children to demonstrate no particular anxiety when a parent left a room, but still give indications that they were quite attached to their mothers. (Perhaps this would be "Secure attachment but detachable", or "Ultra-secure attachment"? I'm not trying to be funny, but it's hard to expand on these arbitrarily narrow terms.) Or was expression of separation anxiety the sole factor considered to demonstrate attachment? If so, it seems rather inadequate and misleadingly narrow.

I've neither done nor read any research that allows me to accurately edit this section to remove any false categorization. But one example that doesn't fit a categorization is enough to invalidate such false spectrum coverage, and I seriously doubt that either of the two others I mentioned is particularly rare, or that I haven't missed more alternatives. Is there someone who can discuss the failure of this section to address a more broad understanding of parental attachment? Does this truly represent the "state of the art" of developmental psychology? — Jeff Q 04:47, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Attachment Theory isn't the same thing as "feeling attached." You sound pretty secure to me, prossibly a bit on the avoidant side (this is my non-expert opinion). Also, it depends on how old you are. The Strange Situation only applies to very young children (1-2 years old or so). After that point, you cannot use the Srange Situation as a method of measurement for attachment. I would suggest finding someone to give you the AAI (see below) if you are really interested in your catagory of attachment. As far as children who don't care when their mother leaves, that is an indication of an avoidant child, but the child could still show secure attachment in other ways. Thus making them Secure-Avoident. No child (or adult for that matter) falls into exactly one catagory 100%. The catagories are not there to classify people into boxes, they are there to provide endpoints on a spectrum. People can be Secure and show Avoidant or Anxious tendencies. If you have insight or questions, I would suggest looking up a local Psychology professor and asking if they can answer your questions or point you to someone who can. Interesting post, I would like to hear what becomes of it --Plamoni 22:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Attachment styles are well-established in current scientific literature. Attachment styles are theoretical constructs that have been tested by different research groups in independent studies. People who have different attachment styles (as determined by standardized measurements) tend to respond differently on various other relationship factors. The fact that many studies by different researchers have found reliable patterns in attachment style correlations undermines claims of false categorization. At the same time, researchers have started to see attachment in terms of two dimensions: a dimension of anxiety about a relationship, and a dimension of avoidance within a relationship. Although you can still classify four attachment styles (high anxiety/high avoidance, high anxiety/low avoidance, low anxiety/high avoidance, low anxiety/low avoidance), many researchers simply use the measures of the two dimensions directly to correlate with other factors and test hypotheses. The section could make mention of this shift, but this would actually end up a fairly minor modification of the section. If anyone would like to know their attachment style, here's the actual questionnaire used in scientific studies: http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl kc62301

Does it need more wiki-ness

This page looks well structured to me. What is lacking in the page (as far as structure)?

there are hardly any wikilinks. there is room for lots in a 2 page article JoeSmack (talk) 20:46, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

Attachment As Drive Fulfilment

This quote, "Attachment theory assumes that humans are social beings; they do not just use other people to satisfy their drives", is surley incorrect.

Standard Behaviourist school of thought on attachment theory rests solely on the mothers ability to satisfy the child's hunger, and Freud identified this and sexual fulfilment.

Unfortunatley, I do not have a knowledge of copyright laws, so I cannot quote at the moment, but the author of the page must surley be mistaken.

• The concept of attachment theory requires reconstitution in light of the following:
• Dependence Drive
• Behavioral dependence is regarded as a drive with bimodal expression wherein the primary expression by the neonate elicits the secondary expression from the parent/caregiver.

Dependence thus described is regarded as a drive due to the behavioral nature and the historicaly ancient and evolutionarily significant influence of the relevant activities. The drive should be regarded as nonhomeostatic in the same sense that sexual drive is but also as quixotic due to the mortal needs of the neonate. The evolutionary influence can be characterized as, the period of infantile, juevenile dependence can not exceed the capability of the parental response. This creates a dynamic which acts to both extend and curtail the duration of the primary dependence period.

Further, there should be a distinction made between the motivations of dependence attachments and attachments of mate selection or competitive sexual selection as well as incorporating the unique qualities of human competitive selection. Wherein, congregation for competitive selection evolved into congregation as competitive selection. All traits conducive to congregation (i.e. socialization/enculturation) thus become subject to the evolutionary influence of competitive selection. Therefore, the period of primary enculturation (psycho sexual stages) is a competitive process within the gestalt of the species and operates in close conjunction with the period of primary dependence. As these two motivations are not congruent and are somewhat incompatible, certain maladies can arise.

Disorganized Attachment

I think this subsection needs to be reworded or clarified. Maybe it's just me, but that section sounds like it's either too profound for my humble self to understand or it's complete B.S. The explanations of the other attachment types seem adequate though. -- 71.2.164.146 06:58, 14 December 2005

It seems reasonable to me, Disorganized Attachment is a quirky thing. The description is very technical in nature and could probably be simplified to be understood by someone without a good deal of background in attachment theory :-P --Plamoni 22:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me

As a student of attachment theory i believe this page is well structured. However, I agree that the section about the sociality of humans needs to be changed. Bowlby specifically emphasized the idea of attachment as a homeostatic system where we use both our innate psychological abilities and physical abilities to gain proximity to our primary caregiver's. In many cases, this primary caregiver is our mother and essentially all of what we do as a young infant is keep her close to us so that we can feel a sense of security which in turn will allow us the mental freedom to explore the world. Popular wording for this is called the safe haven that is created by our caregivers. However, this safe haven is two fold; on the one hand, the safe haven is there to provide us with the sense of security needed to explore and on the other hand, it is necessary for the safe haven to act as a secure base by which we can rely on if we venture out too far into the real world and find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. I belive that there should be a link to some more recent research called the Circle of Security experiment that is being conducted in Seattle, Washington.

Also, i believe that the attachment classifications listed are correct. There are no false classifications present as was suggested in an earlier disccussion posting. Just because you don't believe your attachment pattern is present doesn't mean you can't fall under one of those categories. Granted, recently, there has been a push to expand the categories of attachment classification; however, there is good evidence that this would result in an over diagnosis of poor attachment as there is a fine line between functionally secure attachment and poor attachment.

One note, a couple of the classification listed (anxious and avoidant) are usually associated with childhood attachment. In adults, these are referred to as Preoccupied and Dismissive (respectively). --Plamoni 14:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Researchers have started to see attachment in terms of two dimensions: a dimension of anxiety about a relationship, and a dimension of avoidance within a relationship. Although you can still classify four attachment styles (high anxiety/high avoidance, high anxiety/low avoidance, low anxiety/high avoidance, low anxiety/low avoidance), many researchers simply use the measures of the two dimensions directly to correlate with other factors and test hypotheses. The section could make mention of this shift, but this would actually end up a fairly minor modification of the section. Not anything of pressing urgency. kc62301

Adult Attachment Interview

Currently there is no information on this page concerning techniques for measuring attachment in adults. The Adult Attachment Interview is one such example. I am not an expert on the subject and it is a bit much for me to tackle, I think it is a noticable gap. --Plamoni 22:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

This study might help some: (warning PDF file). It measures attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance with "self-report adult attachment instruments" (questionnaires). --DanielCD 15:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

If anyone would like to know their attachment style, here's the actual questionnaire developed by Shaver and colleagues and used in scientific studies: http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl kc62301

Adults

Misplaced Pages needs some better coverage about the adult aspects of attachment. It would take some time for me to figure out what to suggest though. Articles like love-shyness have aspects of attachment avoidance in them, so any such project would likely need a lot of rethinking. --DanielCD 15:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

If I'm interpreting any of this wrong, please let me know, as I have not read the books on "love-shyness". --DanielCD 20:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

How does this relate to Attachment disorder? --DanielCD 23:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There has been a lot of research on attachment in adult romantic relationships. It would be interesting to know, for example, how it relates to outcome variables such as relationship duration and relationship satisfaction. It would interesting to know how attachment relates to jealousy, support, and intimacy (there are studies out there on these very issues). There are also gender differences in attachment that people in relationships might find interesting. kc62301

Citation

I think a citation providiing a reference for the "some think are cruel" recent addition would be useful. What do others think? DPeterson 16:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Attachment Measures

The topic of attachment measures really deserves its own section. I removed some of the material I put in on the Shaver questionnaire because it did seem imbalanced to talk only about one method. I'll come back after I finish work on some other Misplaced Pages articles and, if someone hasn't already done it, create a section that deals with attachment measures. kc62301

I agree with that. I will add citations for the Adult Attachment Interview. 68.66.160.228 11:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

References

I tried to standardize the references using the < ref >< /ref > tags instead of the bullet points. Some of the works included in the references did not seem to have specific citations in the main article. I therefore moved them to a new section called recommended reading. Hope that's okay. I think a recommended reading section could even be expanded.

Controversial Points

Two points do seem somewhat controversial to me. These include:

• "Attachment theory assumes that humans are social beings; they do not just use other people to satisfy their drives. In this way, attachment theory is similar to object relations theory." To say we are social beings implies a need for social interactions to fulfill fundamental needs. Self-Determination Theory claims that relatedness is a fundamental human need, and relationship researchers influenced by Self-Determination Theory see attachment as the basis for satisfying the need of relatedness. I think this controversy might disappear if someone expanded on what is meant by not just using people to satisfy drives.

I agree with your point here Dr. Art 12:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• "Attachment Theory has become the dominant theory used today in the study of infant and toddler behavior and in the fields of infant mental health, treatment of children, and related fields." Attachment theory was indeed one of the most popular theories in developmental psychology for awhile. I don't think you can say it was ever the dominant theory, as there has always been popular alternatives, such as Piaget's work and the theories it inspired. I just finished a Ph.D. in developmental psychology at the University of Maryland at College Park in 2000. We briefly read about attachment theory as a historical theory in developmental psychology. Many, if not most, researchers in developmental psychologists are today influenced by cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The Theory of Mind in cognitive psychology, for example, has become a popular theoretical framework for understanding how children interact with others. I didn't really take an interest in attachment theory until I started reading about attachment in romantic relationships. However, I was never a therapist, so I don't know the extent to which therapists continue to rely on attachment theory.

Attachment theory is the dominant theory in at least the filed of infant mental health. For example, see:

1. Handbook of Infant Mental Health, edited by Charles Zeanah, MD., Guilford, NY, 1993. 2. The primary journal for the field, Infant Mental Health Journal. 3. Zero to Three journal and materials It is true that other theories are frequently used in the study of infant and toddler behavior, depending on the subject of the research (cognitive issues, perception, etc.). However, infant and toddler mental mental health treatment and study seems to rely primarily on attachment theory. (BTW I also recieved my doctorate from the U of Maryland.) Dr. Art 12:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to see some modifications of these two points.

Ideas for Expansions

I'd like to start some expansions on June 31 (collaboration most welcome!):

• New section on the measurement of attachment. This would review the main methods for measuring attachment (giving equal hearing to each), and discuss some of the controversies regarding the use of different measures.

• Revision of the styles of attachment section. The current section is a great start. Early researchers indeed proposed three main styles of attachment. However, later researchers broke the avoidant style into two types, forming four main styles of attachment (not including disorganized). Psychoetric analysis of the attachment questionnaire by Shaver and colleagues revealed two main dimensions of attachment. The trend in recent years has been to use the scores for the two dimensions for statistical analyses. Different combinations of the two dimensions still allow classification into the four main styles of attachment. I think all this needs to be mentioned to bring the section on attachment styles up to date.

• New section on stability of attachment styles. Attachment theory has always claimed that attachment styles are learned through interactions with attachment figures, primarily the interaction with parents or caregivers during childhood. The learned nature of attachment styles means they can be changed by experience. The question is how much they can be changed. Bowlby theorized that children develop attachment styles that remain highly stable throughout the rest of their lives. Shaver and a number of his colleagues also view attachment styles as highly stable and therefore like personality traits. These theorists claim people bring the same attachment style to all their adult relationships. Yet, emprirical studies have called these views into question. Attachment styles show only moderate amounts of stability over time, rather than the high stability previously theorized, and people show different styles of attachment in different relationships. The explanation of these findings lies in the concept of working models.

• New section on working models. Bowlby proposed that people develop working models of attachment. These working models consist of thoughts, or cognitions, about interactions between the self and the attachment figure. This idea has been extended considerably by advances in cognitive science. A number of studies have related working models to social cognitions. One study suggests that people create hierarchies of working models: they have a generalized working model that summarizes experiences from all relationships, and they have individual working models based on experiences in each relationship. The generalized working model may explain the moderate stability of attachment styles, while the individual working models may explain the variations in attachment observed across relationships and over time.

• New section on attachment in adult romantic relationship. This section would look at correlations between attachment and various relationship phenomena such as satisfaction, duration, intimacy, jealousy, and so forth. Lots of citations to research would be included.