Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Attachment theory has been generating creative and impactful research for almost half a century. In this article we focus on the documented antecedents and consequences of individual differences in infant attachment patterns, suggesting topics for further theoretical clarification, research, clinical interventions, and policy applications.
We also review connections between attachment and a child psychopathology, b neurobiology, c health and immune function, d empathy, compassion, and altruism, e school readiness, and f culture. We conclude with clinical-translational and public policy applications of attachment research that could reduce the occurrence and maintenance of insecure attachment during infancy and beyond.
Our goal is to inspire researchers to continue advancing the field by finding new ways to tackle long-standing questions and by generating and testing novel hypotheses. Using a combination of case studies and statistical methods novel at the time for psychoanalysts to examine the precursors of delinquency, Bowlby arrived at his initial empirical insight: The precursors of emotional disorders and delinquency could be found in early attachment-related experiences, specifically separations from, or inconsistent or harsh treatment by, mothers and often fathers or other men who were involved with the mothers.
Over the subsequent decades, as readers of this journal know, he built a complex and highly generative theory of attachment. Unlike other psychoanalytic writers of his generation, Bowlby formed a working relationship with a very talented empirically oriented researcher, Mary Ainsworth.
Her careful observations, first in Uganda Ainsworth, and later in Baltimore, led to a detailed specification of aspects of maternal behavior that preceded individual differences in infant attachment.
