Attachment theory, one of the theories put forward about the dynamics of interpersonal attraction and relationships, argues that attachment to the mother or another comforting figure has an important function in the child's survival. According to social psychologists in this approach (Bowlby, Ainsworth, etc.), the need for warm and close relationships with some people is a fundamental dimension of human nature. Because, the need for attachment observed in humans is a biological and social process aimed at protecting the newborn child from environmental dangers.
WHAT IS ATTACHMENT?
In psychology, it is the individual's tendency to expect closeness from another person and the individual feeling safe when this person is around.
ATTACHMENT IN CHILDREN
Attachment means establishing a positive, healthy and strong emotional bond between the child and his mother, father or caregiver.
ATTACHMENT STYLES IN CHILDREN
Secure Attachment: The child accepts the mother as a basis of trust, can be consoled after being separated from the mother and left alone with a stranger, has less need to cling to the mother, welcomes her mother positively when she enters after being left alone, and welcomes her mother when she enters. clearly prefers it to a stranger.
Insecure/Avoidant Attachment: The child avoids contact with the mother, stays away from her, especially when the mother leaves the room and comes back, and resists the mother's efforts to establish contact. They seem to be in search of contact together. Throughout the process, he treats the mother and the stranger in the same way.
Insecure/Resistant Attachment: When the child is separated from the mother, he becomes very angry and attempts to comfort the child fail when the mother returns. It has been observed that the child both seeks and avoids contact at different times. The child may show anger and violent behavior after the mother leaves and returns, and resists contact or comfort efforts from the stranger.
Insecure/Disorganized Attachment: The child shows confused, anxious, careless behavior, Immediately after a strong search for intimacy It can show a strong avoidance behavior. While going towards his mother, he can look in other directions and show unrelated emotional expressions.
There is no single reason that creates attachment situations; The behavior of the family, the child's characteristics, family and culture are effective.
ATTACHMENT IN ADULTS
According to Attachment Theory, the child is born from infancy. He uses his experiences with his mother and the relationship he developed with her as a model for his close relationships with all kinds of people in later ages; In this way, a person's self model and others model develop. Self-model is the extent to which a person sees himself as a valuable individual worthy of love.
Others model is the extent to which a person perceives other people as reliable individuals who are ready to offer attention and love. Individuals who receive attention from their mothers without delay whenever they need them in their infancy and thus have a secure attachment develop positive models of self and others. They do not hesitate to open their feelings and thoughts to others and express their needs, and they can easily establish close relationships. On the other hand, it is possible for individuals to have one or both negative models of self and others.
ATTACHMENT TYPES IN ADULTS
Secure attachment
Individuals with this attachment style tend to view both themselves and others positively. They value close relationships and are successful in initiating and maintaining such relationships. However, they also manage not to lose their personal autonomy during these relationships.
Dismissive attachment
Individuals with this attachment style see themselves positively and others. They tend to view it negatively. They are fond of their independence and do not easily develop close relationships with anyone. They deny their need for others and the importance of close relationships.
Preoccupied attachment
Those with this attachment style Individuals tend to think and feel negatively about themselves and positively about others. others Gaining approval is very important for these people. They idealize others in their minds. In their close relationships, they are very dependent on the other party and express their emotions in an exaggerated way.
Fearful/anxious attachment
They have this attachment style. These are individuals who have negative models of both self and others. They do not trust themselves or others.
ATTACHMENT THEORY AND A RESEARCH
Studies on the attachment process were carried out by John Bowlby (1960) in the Tavistock Clinic, It started with examining the effects of this situation on the personality development of young children who had to separate from the people they knew and loved.
Bowlby's Attachment Theory:
Bowlby began to form his theory by observing the behavior of babies who were separated from their primary caregiver for various periods of time. The baby shows a series of emotional reactions to separation from the mother. Therefore, Attachment Theory is concerned with the functions of the emotional chain established between the baby and the mother, and attachment theory basically focuses on the effects of this chain on the formation of the child's self-concept and the development of his views on the social world.
Accordingly, the baby's attachment behaviors are controlled by a behavioral system that confirms the goals. In this system, there is a "set of goals" related to maintaining closeness to an adult (mostly the mother) who protects and watches over the child, and it carries a biological function that supports the child's safety and survival.
Therefore, the biologically based attachment system, It fulfills an evolutionary function of protection and guardianship throughout the life cycle. In Bowlby's first book, "Attachment", it is emphasized that everyone is equipped with an attachment behavioral system through the process of natural selection, and that the attachment system is particularly prone to activation under conditions of anxiety, fear, illness and fatigue. Indeed, in such cases, the human baby needs a mechanism that keeps it close to its parents.
Bowlby (1982) called these signals and situations that support and maintain closeness to the caregiver. (Cited in Crain, 1992).
Accordingly, the long life of human beings The attachment system, which seems to develop due to relative helplessness, manifests itself with three basic emotional reactions.
1st SIGNAL
The first of the obvious signals is the baby's "crying". In addition to crying, the baby starts looking for the mother and "protests" others' attempts to soothe.
SIGNAL 2
The second signal is to take a passive stance and make an open statement. It is taking on an air of "sorrow" that indicates unhappiness.
3rd SIGNAL
The third reaction, according to Bowlby, is "detachment", which is seen only in humans. ) and involves active and apparently defensive ignoring and avoiding the mother when she returns.
Bowlby proposed that the child's attachment develops through successive stages.
In the First Attachment Phase (From Birth to 3 Months)
Babies react similarly to everyone. They enjoy listening to human voices and looking at human faces. Bowlby finds this effect of the human face as the strongest bonding effect, rather than other visual stimuli. He evaluated it as a genetic bias that reveals one of the behaviors, "social laughter." According to Bowlby, laughter supports crying because it maintains closeness with the caregiver. In fact, laughter itself has a quality that supports the interaction of loving and caring.
In the Second Attachment Phase (3-6 Months),
The baby's social reactions begin to be selective and the baby's acquaintances become selective. people become striking to them. It is the dominant feature of this stage that they notice strangers and begin to fear them.
Bowlby suggested that the child's attachment develops through successive stages
Third. Attachment Phase (6 Months-3 Years)
It includes the baby's beginning to exhibit "separation anxiety". Although the baby does not want to be separated from the attachment figure, he can move away from the caregiver when he wants to explore the environment, using the caregiver as a safe base. Frightening stimuli such as loud noises cause the child to stop exploring the environment and seek close physical contact with the mother. Similarly, when a young child is sick or tired, he can stay close to his mother. The need to know will outweigh the need to discover; Therefore, Bowlby emphasizes that the attachment system is activated at various levels of arousal. Starting from the age of one, the child begins to form a general idea about the accessibility of the mother and whether she will meet his needs, and thus the attachment process has passed an important stage.
In the Fourth Attachment Stage (Age 3 - End of Childhood)
The child can now take into account the caregiver's plans and intentions and begin to reason about why he left him alone. Undoubtedly, being alone is one of the great fears of human life, and understanding the important biological rationales behind it is important in understanding adult behavior. Bowlby paid special attention to the effects of separation. If the separation is not long-term, a warm bond with the mother is re-established after a while, but otherwise there is a danger that the child will lose hope in all people and will not be able to form deep bonds with other people even in adulthood. Such people only use others to achieve their own goals but can never truly love them.
The basic suggestions of Bowlby's attachment theory
Bowlby called these people "emotionless characters" and Thus, he emphasized that the deep effects of separation on children will have a profound impact on the whole life; He believed that the ethological approach was important because it said that the child's need to keep the parent close enables living things to survive, and that this is as basic as other biological needs such as eating and sexuality.
one. Suggestion:
"When an individual believes that an attachment figure is available whenever he or she wants (needs), he or she is less likely to engage in self-control than an individual who does not hold such a belief for any reason." will tend to have severe or chronic fear." In other words, being self-confident and free of anxiety depends on the quality of that individual's past and present attachment relationships.
2. Suggestion:"Belief in the availability or absence of the attachment figure when needed throughout the immature years (infancy, childhood)
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