Editing Attachment theory (section)

====Developments since 1970s====
In the 1970s, problems with viewing attachment as a trait (stable characteristic of an individual) rather than as a type of behaviour with organizing functions and outcomes, led some authors to the conclusion that attachment behaviours were best understood in terms of their functions in the child's life.<ref name="Sroufe, Waters, 1977">{{cite journal |vauthors=Sroufe LA, Waters E |year=1977 |title=Attachment as an organizational construct |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_child-development_1977-12_48_4/page/1184 |journal=Child Development |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=1184–99 |doi=10.2307/1128475 |jstor=1128475}}</ref> This way of thinking saw the secure base concept as central to attachment theory's logic, coherence, and status as an organizational construct.<ref name="WatCum">{{cite journal | vauthors = Waters E, Cummings EM | title = A secure base from which to explore close relationships | journal = Child Development | volume = 71 | issue = 1 | pages = 164–72 | year = 2000 | pmid = 10836570 | doi = 10.1111/1467-8624.00130 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.505.6759 | s2cid = 15158143 }}</ref> Following this argument, the assumption that attachment is expressed identically in all humans cross-culturally was examined.<ref name="Tronick">{{cite journal |vauthors=Tronick EZ, Morelli GA, Ivey PK |s2cid=1756552 |year=1992 |title=The Efe forager infant and toddler's pattern of social relationships: Multiple and simultaneous |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_developmental-psychology_1992-07_28_4/page/568 |journal=Developmental Psychology |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=568–77 |doi=10.1037/0012-1649.28.4.568}}</ref> The research showed that though there were cultural differences, the three basic patterns, secure, avoidant and ambivalent, can be found in every culture in which studies have been undertaken, even where communal sleeping arrangements are the norm. The selection of the secure pattern is found in the majority of children across cultures studied. This follows logically from the fact that attachment theory provides for infants to adapt to changes in the environment, selecting optimal behavioural strategies.<ref name="ijzsag">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |title=Cross-Cultural Patterns of Attachment; Universal and Contextual Dimensions |encyclopedia=Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research and Clinical Applications |publisher=Guilford Press |location=New York and London |pages=880–905 |isbn=978-1-59385-874-2 |vauthors=van IJzendoorn MH, Sagi-Schwartz A |veditors=Cassidy J, Shaver PR}}</ref> How attachment is expressed shows cultural variations which need to be ascertained before studies can be undertaken; for example [[Kisii people|Gusii]] infants are greeted with a handshake rather than a hug. Securely attached Gusii infants anticipate and seek this contact. There are also differences in the distribution of insecure patterns based on cultural differences in child-rearing practices.<ref name=ijzsag/> The scholar [[Michael Rutter]] in 1974 studied the importance of distinguishing between the consequences of attachment deprivation upon intellectual retardation in children and lack of development in the emotional growth in children.<ref>{{cite book | first = Michael | last = Rutter | date = 1974 | title = The Qualities of Mothering | url = https://archive.org/details/qualitiesofmothe0000unse | location = New York, N.Y. | isbn = 978-0-87668-189-3 }}</ref> Rutter's conclusion was that a careful delineation of maternal attributes needed to be identified and differentiated for progress in the field to continue.

The biggest challenge to the notion of the universality of attachment theory came from studies conducted in Japan where the concept of ''[[amae]]'' plays a prominent role in describing family relationships. Arguments revolved around the appropriateness of the use of the Strange Situation procedure where ''amae'' is practised. Ultimately research tended to confirm the universality hypothesis of attachment theory.<ref name=ijzsag/> Most recently a 2007 study conducted in [[Sapporo]] in Japan found attachment distributions consistent with global norms using the six-year Main and Cassidy scoring system for attachment classification.<ref name="Behrens">{{cite journal | vauthors = Behrens KY, Hesse E, Main M | title = Mothers' attachment status as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview predicts their 6-year-olds' reunion responses: a study conducted in Japan | url = https://archive.org/details/sim_developmental-psychology_2007-11_43_6/page/1553 | journal = Developmental Psychology | volume = 43 | issue = 6 | pages = 1553–1567 | date = November 2007 | pmid = 18020832 | doi = 10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1553 }}</ref><ref name="MainCass">{{cite journal |vauthors=Main M, Cassidy J |year=1988 |title=Categories of response to reunion with the parent at age 6: Predictable from infant attachment classifications and stable over a 1-month period |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_developmental-psychology_1988-05_24_3/page/415 |journal=Developmental Psychology |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=415–26 |doi=10.1037/0012-1649.24.3.415}}</ref>

Critics in the 1990s such as [[Judith Rich Harris|J. R. Harris]], [[Steven Pinker]] and [[Jerome Kagan]] were generally concerned with the concept of infant determinism ([[nature versus nurture]]), stressing the effects of later experience on personality.<ref name="harris">{{cite book |title=The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do |title-link=The Nurture Assumption | vauthors = Harris JR |publisher=Free Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-684-84409-1 |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nurtureassumptio00harr_0/page/1 1–4] |author-link=Judith Rich Harris}}</ref><ref name="pinker">{{cite book |title=The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature |title-link=The Blank Slate | vauthors = Pinker S |publisher=Allen Lane |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-14-027605-3 |location=London |pages=372–99 |author-link=Steven Pinker}}</ref><ref name="kagan">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/threeseductiveid00kaga_0/page/83 |title=Three Seductive Ideas | vauthors = Kagan J |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-674-89033-6 |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=[https://archive.org/details/threeseductiveid00kaga_0/page/83 83–150]}}</ref> Building on the work on [[temperament]] of [[Stella Chess]], Kagan rejected almost every assumption on which attachment theory's cause was based. Kagan argued that heredity was far more important than the transient developmental effects of early environment. For example, a child with an inherently difficult temperament would not elicit sensitive behavioural responses from a caregiver. The debate spawned considerable research and analysis of data from the growing number of longitudinal studies. Subsequent research has not borne out Kagan's argument, possibly suggesting that it is the caregiver's behaviours that form the child's attachment style, although how this style is expressed may differ with the child's temperament.<ref name=vbv/> Harris and Pinker put forward the notion that the influence of parents had been much exaggerated, arguing that socialization took place primarily in peer groups. H. Rudolph Schaffer concluded that parents and peers had different functions, fulfilling distinctive roles in children's development.<ref name="schaffer">{{cite book |title=Introducing Child Psychology | vauthors =Schaffer HR |publisher=Blackwell |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-631-21627-8 |location=Oxford |page=113}}</ref>

Psychoanalyst/psychologists [[Peter Fonagy]] and [[Mary Target]] have attempted to bring attachment theory and psychoanalysis into a closer relationship through cognitive science as [[mentalization]]. Mentalization, or theory of mind, is the capacity of human beings to guess with some accuracy what thoughts, emotions and intentions lie behind behaviours as subtle as facial expression.<ref name="Fonagy et al.">{{cite book |title=Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self |vauthors=Fonagy P, Gergely G, Jurist EL, Target M |publisher=Other Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-59051-161-9 |location=New York}}</ref> It has been speculated that this connection between theory of mind and the internal working model may open new areas of study, leading to alterations in attachment theory.{{sfn|Mercer|2006|pp=165–68}} Since the late 1980s, there has been a developing rapprochement between attachment theory and psychoanalysis, based on common ground as elaborated by attachment theorists and researchers, and a change in what psychoanalysts consider to be central to psychoanalysis. [[Object relations]] models which emphasise the autonomous need for a relationship have become dominant and are linked to a growing recognition in psychoanalysis of the importance of infant development in the context of relationships and internalized representations. Psychoanalysis has recognized the formative nature of a child's early environment including the issue of childhood trauma. A psychoanalytically based exploration of the attachment system and an accompanying clinical approach has emerged together with a recognition of the need for measurement of outcomes of interventions.<ref name="fogeta">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |encyclopedia=Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research and Clinical Applications |publisher=Guilford Press |location=New York and London |pages=783–810 |isbn=978-1-59385-874-2 |contribution=Psychoanalytic Constructs and Attachment Theory and Research |veditors=Cassidy J, Shaver PR |vauthors=Fonagy P, Gergely G, Target M|title=Handbook of Attachment, Second Edition: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications }}</ref>

One focus of attachment research has been the difficulties of children whose attachment history was poor, including those with extensive non-parental child care experiences. Concern with the effects of child care was intense during the so-called "day care wars" of the late-20th century, during which some authors stressed the deleterious effects of day care.<ref name="belsky">{{cite journal | vauthors = Belsky J, Rovine MJ | title = Nonmaternal care in the first year of life and the security of infant-parent attachment | url = https://archive.org/details/sim_child-development_1988-02_59_1/page/157 | journal = Child Development | volume = 59 | issue = 1 | pages = 157–67 | date = February 1988 | pmid = 3342709 | doi = 10.2307/1130397 | jstor = 1130397 }}</ref> As a result of this controversy, training of child care professionals has come to stress attachment issues, including the need for relationship-building by the assignment of a child to a specific care-giver. Although only high-quality child care settings are likely to provide this, more infants in child care receive attachment-friendly care than in the past.{{sfn|Mercer|2006|pp=160–63}} A [[natural experiment]] permitted extensive study of attachment issues as researchers followed thousands of Romanian orphans adopted into Western families after the end of the [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]] regime. The English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team, led by [[Michael Rutter]], followed some of the children into their teens, attempting to unravel the effects of poor attachment, adoption, new relationships, physical problems and medical issues associated with their early lives. Studies of these adoptees, whose initial conditions were shocking, yielded reason for optimism as many of the children developed quite well. Researchers noted that separation from familiar people is only one of many factors that help to determine the quality of development.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Rutter M | s2cid = 10334844 | title = Nature, nurture, and development: from evangelism through science toward policy and practice | journal = Child Development | volume = 73 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | date = January–February 2002 | pmid = 14717240 | doi = 10.1111/1467-8624.00388 }}</ref> Although higher rates of atypical insecure attachment patterns were found compared to native-born or early-adopted samples, 70% of later-adopted children exhibited no marked or severe attachment disorder behaviours.<ref name=PPP/>

Authors considering attachment in non-Western cultures have noted the connection of attachment theory with Western family and child care patterns characteristic of Bowlby's time.<ref name="MC">{{cite encyclopedia |year=1985 |title=Infant temperament, mother's mode of interaction, and attachment in Japan: An interim report |encyclopedia=Growing Points of Attachment Theory and Research: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development |volume=50 1–2, Serial No. 209 |pages=276–97 |isbn=978-0-226-07411-5 |vauthors=Miyake K, Chen SJ |veditors=Bretherton I, Waters E}}</ref> As children's experience of care changes, so may attachment-related experiences. For example, changes in attitudes toward female sexuality have greatly increased the numbers of children living with their never-married mothers or being cared for outside the home while the mothers work. This social change has made it more difficult for childless people to adopt infants in their own countries. There has been an increase in the number of older-child adoptions and adoptions from third-world sources in first-world countries. Adoptions and births to same-sex couples have increased in number and gained legal protection, compared to their status in Bowlby's time.{{sfn|Mercer|2006|pp=152–56}} Regardless of whether parents are genetically related, adoptive parents attachment roles they will still influence and affect their child's attachment behaviours throughout their lifetime.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Raby |first1=Kenneth Lee |last2=Dozier |first2=Mary |date=February 2019 |title=Attachment across the lifespan: insights from adoptive families |journal=Current Opinion in Psychology |language=en |volume=25 |pages=81–85 |doi=10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.03.011 |pmc=6158124 |pmid=29621692}}</ref> Issues have been raised to the effect that the [[wikt:dyadic|dyadic]] model characteristic of attachment theory cannot address the complexity of real-life social experiences, as infants often have multiple relationships within the family and in child care settings.<ref name="McHale">{{cite journal | vauthors = McHale JP | title = When infants grow up in multiperson relationship systems | journal = Infant Mental Health Journal | volume = 28 | issue = 4 | pages = 370–392 | date = July 2007 | pmid = 21512615 | pmc = 3079566 | doi = 10.1002/imhj.20142 }}</ref> It is suggested these multiple relationships influence one another reciprocally, at least within a family.<ref name="Zhang">{{cite journal | vauthors = Zhang X, Chen H | title = Reciprocal influences between parents' perceptions of mother-child and father-child relationships: a short-term longitudinal study in Chinese preschoolers | journal = The Journal of Genetic Psychology | volume = 171 | issue = 1 | pages = 22–34 | year = 2010 | pmid = 20333893 | doi = 10.1080/00221320903300387 | s2cid = 35227740 }}</ref>

Principles of attachment theory have been used to explain adult social behaviours, including mating, social dominance and hierarchical power structures, in-group identification,<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Milanov M, Rubin M, Paolini S | title = Adult attachment styles as predictors of different types of ingroup identification. | journal = Bulgarian Journal of Psychology | date = 2013 | volume = 1 | issue = 4 | pages = 175–186 | url = https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BycrcvpKCBNWZTRseVpja2Rjejg/edit?usp=sharing&pli=1 }}</ref> group coalitions, membership in cults and totalitarian systems<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stein |first1=Alexandra |title=Terror, love and brainwashing : attachment in cults and totalitarian systems |isbn=978-1-138-67797-5|year=2017 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref> and negotiation of reciprocity and justice.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Bugental DB | s2cid = 8499316 | title = Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: a domain-based approach | journal = Psychological Bulletin | volume = 126 | issue = 2 | pages = 187–219 | date = March 2000 | pmid = 10748640 | doi = 10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.187 }}</ref> Those explanations have been used to design parental care training, and have been particularly successful in the design of child abuse prevention programmes.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Bugental DB, Ellerson PC, Lin EK, Rainey B, Kokotovic A, O'Hara N | s2cid = 32696082 | title = A cognitive approach to child abuse prevention | journal = Journal of Family Psychology | volume = 16 | issue = 3 | pages = 243–58 | date = September 2002 | pmid = 12238408 | doi = 10.1037/0893-3200.16.3.243 }}</ref>

While a wide variety of studies have upheld the basic tenets of attachment theory, research has been inconclusive as to whether self-reported early attachment and later depression are demonstrably related.<ref name="Ma_attachment">{{cite journal | vauthors = Ma K |title=Attachment theory in adult psychiatry. Part 1: Conceptualizations, measurement and clinical research findings |journal=Advances in Psychiatric Treatment|volume=12 |pages=440–449 |year=2006|issue=6 |url=http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/12/6/440 |access-date=2010-04-21| doi=10.1192/apt.12.6.440 |doi-access=free |url-access=subscription }}</ref>