Provide Critical Evaluation of Bowlby's Theories

Provide critical evaluation of Bowlby’s attachment theory

Attachment may be defined as the entrenched and enduring cognitive and affective bond that connects individuals to one another (Ainsworth, 1973). Though, such bonds may not be reciprocal; with one individual developing an attachment that is not reciprocated (Slee, 2000).

Attachments may be characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as proximity with an attachment figure when distressed or the attachment behaviors in Adults towards infants, usually that of a responsive and sensitive action toward the infant or child’s needs (Shemmings and Shemmings, 2011) and such behaviors are considered universal, permeating and across cultures and acts as an internal frame work for the development of social acuity.

Attachment theory, is then an attempt to explain the phenomena of the parent-child relationship and the influences that arise from established and manifested development.
Various theories have made accounts of the processes by which infants form attachments and in the first half of the 20th century, Anna Freud’s psychoanalytical approach to social bonding had emerged as the foremost account of such a social phenomenon, purporting that a child’s needs, namely food, are the determining factor for established attachments; referred to as, the ‘Cupboard love’ theory (Slee, 2000). Later, Dollard and Miller (1950) developed the behavioral or learning theory, linking attachment to the requirement of alleviated stress and the desire for comfort seeking behavior (Slee, 2000), though like the cupboard love approach, the basis for attachment formation is the acquisition of food. The child, through classical conditioning (learned associations), forms an association between mother and comfort, predominantly through feeding and by exhibiting social releasers (smiling, etc) bring about specific responses from the attachment figure or caregiver and through operant conditioning (reinforcement), repeat these...