Security in Infancy, Childhood, and Adulthood: A Move to the Level of Representation
Research guided by attachment theory as formulated by Bowlby and Ainsworth is branching out in exciting new directions. The 12 chapters collected together in this Monograph present theoretical and methodological tools that will facilitate further research on attachment across the life span, across g...
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| Published in: | Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 1985-01, Vol.50 (1/2), p.66-104 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Research guided by attachment theory as formulated by Bowlby and Ainsworth is branching out in exciting new directions. The 12 chapters collected together in this Monograph present theoretical and methodological tools that will facilitate further research on attachment across the life span, across generations, and across cultures. The Monograph is divided into 4 parts. Part 1 provides the theoretical framework, emphasizing the ethological and the psychoanalytic roots of attachment theory. Two central ideas in attachment theory are highlighted: attachment as grounded in a behavioral-motivational control system whose set-goal is felt security, and the notion that individuals construct internal working models of self and attachment figures that guide the interpretation and production of behavior. These themes are repeatedly taken up in other chapters of the Monograph. Part 2 is concerned with translating theory into measurement. In Chapter II, Waters and Deane present a Q-sort suitable for assessing attachment security in 12-36-month-olds. This instrument is based on Bowlby's control systems model of attachment. In Chapter III, Main, Kaplan, and Cassidy offer a variety of highly original measures for assessing security in children and adults that have been validated against attachment classifications in infancy. These measures open new avenues for research by moving the study of attachment to the level of representation. Part 3 (Chaps. IV-IX) is organized around issues in adaptation, maladaptation, and intergenerational transmission. Vaughn, Deane, and Waters (Chap. IV) examine short-term and long-term adaptations to nonmaternal care. Findings on short-term adaptation to high-quality day care seemed benign; those on long-term adaptation illustrate that outcome is jointly dependent on attachment security and on whether or when the mother returns to work. In Chapter V, Dontas, Maratos, Fafoutis, and Karangelis present a field study, conducted in a model infant home in Greece, describing 8-12-month-olds' 2-week adaptations to a new principal caregiver (the adoptive mother) in a supportive setting. The theme of Chapters VI and VII is continuity of adaptation from infancy to early childhood in a poverty and in a middle-class sample. Significant relationships between early insecure attachment classification and later preschool behavior problems are reported for the poverty sample (Erickson, Sroufe, & Egeland, Chap. VI) but not for the middle-class sample (Bates, Ma |
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| ISSN: | 0037-976X 1540-5834 |