Human is an organism that lives in a community and desires to coexist with other people. Due to its special biological situation, the human baby depends on the direct help of its parents for a much longer period of time than the babies of other species in order to survive. This inevitable situation explains the coexistence, tendencies and needs of organisms such as humans, especially the need for attachment. Attachment (attachment) is an expected situation that begins in the first days of life, has a predominant emotional aspect.
Attachment theory was formed as a result of the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. It has radically changed our thoughts until today about the child's bond with the mother and the disruption of this bond, separation from the mother, deprivation of the mother and loss of the mother. Although many models and theories have been put forward that deal with the impact of parent and child relationships on child development, "Attachment Theory" focuses on the influence of parents on the child's development. It seems to give a more effective emphasis than other models or theories.
According to Bowlby (1969), the person who gives primary care to the child (usually the mother) strong> process in the formation of attachment between people;
- Orientation to prefer people and moving objects,
- Learning to distinguish those they see more often from others,
- Approaching people they know and staying away from strangers,
- Distinguishing and increasing the behaviors that bring the desired results from others.
The concept of attachment in infancy; being positive towards a particular person. It covers all emotional and behavioral patterns such as reactions, wanting to spend most of the time with that person, immediately looking for that person in the face of any fearful situation or object, feeling the presence of the attached person and simultaneously feeling relaxed. Attachment during infancy is observed in stages. Attachment begins immediately after birth, as per the nature of the human child; searching for the breast, turning the head, sucking, swallowing, thumb sucking, catching, turning towards the mother, feeding times It manifests itself in the form of anticipation and preparation. They classified the attachment behaviors they identified in children into three categories. The first of these is the secure attachment style, and within a secure attachment, children feel safe in playing or exploring through the mother who can meet their basic needs in a timely manner. When they are left alone by their mothers, they continue to seek closeness and contact with their mothers and become restless reactively, but when they are reunited with their mothers, they calm down easily and continue to be interested in and explore the environment. This type of secure attachment pattern established with the mother contributes to the baby's adaptation and development. Secondly, in the anxious/ambivalent attachment style, children feel intense anxiety, tension and anger when separated from their mothers, refuse to communicate with strangers, and when reunited with the mother, instead of calming down easily and maintaining their interest in the environment, they get closer to the mother and do not want to leave her. Individuals who develop a sense of insecure attachment have difficulty trusting others and constantly try to keep their relationships with others under control. The behavior of keeping relationships under control usually occurs in the form of not being able to establish close relationships due to fear of being abandoned or rejected by others, fear of being unloved or worthless, and avoiding feelings of intense loneliness and isolation. When the literature on attachment is examined, it can be seen that the attachment pattern that develops between the baby and the primary caregiver (mother) from birth is not a process that occurs only in the first years of life, but its impact on the individual's mental health continues both in childhood and in the transition to adulthood, and that attachment It is stated that it is a life script or process that continues throughout life. (Bartholomew, 1993; Rice, 1990).
In recent years, research findings examining the role of attachment in adolescent and adult relationships indicate that the models the child creates regarding himself and others, depending on the parents' reactions to the child in the first years of life. or in later years It reveals that it is a model for interpersonal relationships (Allen et al. 2002). When we look at the results of studies on attachment styles in general; Adolescents with a secure attachment style are able to express their emotions more easily and experience less conflict in their parent and peer relationships (Ducharme, Doyle, & Markiewicz, 2002), while adolescents with an insecure attachment style are unable to open themselves to others and establish closeness. In addition to being reluctant (Allen et al. 2002), it also reveals that they have low self-confidence(Laible, Carlo, & Roeschc, 2004).
Researchers in the last twenty years They revealed individual differences in attachment orientations. For example, Hazan and Shaver (1987) classified adolescents and adults as secure, avoidant, and anxious regarding attachment styles. Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) defined attachment styles at the intersection of mental models evaluated in positive and negative poles.
Thus, they suggested that four basic attachment styles would emerge from the crossing of two dimensions - mental models evaluated in positive and negative poles;
a) safe, (++)
b) fearful, (-+)
c) obsessed, (+-)
d) indifferent. (--)
Secure attachment style is the combination of positive self and others models; fearful attachment style, the combination of negative self and other models; Preoccupied attachment style is a combination of negative self-model and positive others; Dismissive attachment style includes the combination of valuing oneself and having negative attitudes towards others. According to Bartholomew (1990), secure people combine a positive self-perception and the feeling of being worthy of being loved with positive expectations that others are reliable, supportive, accessible and well-intentioned. Fearful people reflect feelings of individual worthlessness and expectations that others are untrustworthy and rejecting. Obsessive people make positive evaluations of others, feeling worthless and unworthy of being loved. Unregistered persons are They place excessive importance on autonomy and defensively reject the need for others and the necessity of close relationships. The avoidance pattern identified by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) and Hazan and Shaver (1987) brought together two different theoretical forms of avoidance and formed them into a pattern as fearful-avoidance and indifferent-avoidance. They determined it to be two dimensions. According to Lopez and Gormley (2002), attachment styles - internal functioning models - affect the development of close adolescent and adult relationships. When four internal functioning models are compared, secure individuals are those who show the most optimal behavior in close relationships. In this way, they have the ability to regulate negative emotions with attachment figures for themselves and others. Secure individuals have the capacity to routinely relieve tension in their close relationships by showing the least type of negative behavior. Thus, dismissive or preoccupied individuals tend to display more negative behavior during conflict situations than secure individuals. When obsessive and indifferent individuals are compared, obsessive individuals are the individuals who take refuge in difficulties the most. Considering that preoccupied individuals are the individuals most invested in maintaining the relationship to maintain the validity of the self, these individuals often appear to be overly cautious regarding the presence of attachment figures. This state of mind, when faced with tension in a relationship, can lead to the activation of conflicting thoughts and feelings based on the history of unpredictable relationships and lead to intense hostility. Fearful individuals, on the other hand, are assumed to be individuals who combine negative internal functioning models of themselves and others. As a result, they are the individuals who most avoid social relationships due to their fear of rejection and emotional closeness. Studies comparing Hazan and Shaver's tripartite attachment approach with Bartholomew and Horowitz's quadruple attachment approach have generally provided evidence for the validity of two different avoidant (fearful and dismissive) attachment styles. It was carried out within the framework of the quadruple attachment approach proposed by Bartholomew and Horowitz. Studies have consistently shown that fearful and dismissive attachment styles differ based on mental models. For example, Bylsma, Cozarelli and Sümer (1997) showed that apathetic people have a higher level of self-esteem than fearful people and that there are fewer differences between the real and ideal self-concepts of these people (cited in Sümer). and Güngör, 1999, p.75).
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