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Home Attachment Psychology Mary Ainsworth Privation Deprivation Search Bowlby Attachment Theory Bowlby Child Development

John Bowlby was a psychoanalyst (like Freud) and believed that mental health and behavioural problems could be attributed to early childhood. Bowlby's evolutionary theory of attachment suggests that children come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others, because this will help them to survive. Bowlby was very much influenced by ethological theory in general, but especially by Lorenz's (1935) study of imprinting. Lornez showed that attachment was innate (in young ducklings) and therefore has a survival value. Bowlby believed that attachment behaviours are instinctive and will be activated by any conditions that seem to threaten the achievement of proximity, such as separation, insecurity and fear. Bowlby (1969, 1988) also postulated that the fear of strangers represents an important survival mechanism, built in by nature. Babies are born with the tendency to display certain innate behaviours (called social releasers) which help ensure proximity and contact with the mother or mother figure (e.g. crying, smiling, crawling, etc.) – these are species-specific behaviours. During the evolution of the human species, it would have been the babies who stayed close to their mothers who would have survived to have children of their own and Bowlby hypothesised that both infants and mothers have evolved a biological need to stay in contact with each other. These attachment behaviours initially function like