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Introduction to attachment theory in developmental psychology, including Bowlby and Ainsworth’s contributions, evaluation and criticisms of attachment theory.

Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is a concept in developmental psychology that concerns the importance of “attachment” in regards to personal development. Specifically, it makes the claim that the ability for an individual to form an emotional and physical “attachment” to another person gives a sense of stability and security necessary to take risks, branch out, and grow and develop as a personality. Naturally, attachment theory is a broad idea with many expressions, and the best understanding of it can be had by looking at several of those expressions in turn.

John Bowlby

Psychologist John Bowlby was the first to coin the term. His work in the late 60s established the precedent that childhood development depended heavily upon a child’s ability to form a strong relationship with “at least one primary caregiver”. Generally speaking, this is one of the parents.

Bowlby’s studies in childhood development and “temperament” led him to the conclusion that a strong attachment to a caregiver provides a necessary sense of security and foundation. Without such a relationship in place, Bowlby found that a great deal of developmental energy is expended in the search for stability and security. In general, those without such attachments are fearful and are less willing to seek out and learn from new experiences. By contrast, a child with a strong attachment to a parent knows that they have “back-up” so to speak, and thusly tend to be more adventurous and eager to have new experiences (which are of course vital to learning and development).

There is some basis in observational psychology here. The baby who is attached strongly to a caregiver has several of his or her most immediate needs met and accounted for. Consequently, they are able to spend a great deal more time observing and interacting with their environments. Thusly, their development is facilitated.

In DepthObservational Psychology

Introduction to observational psychology with an overview of Bandura’s social learning theory, modern issues in observational psychology and an… Learn more

For Bowlby, the role of the parent as caregiver grows over time to meet the particular needs of the attached child. Early on, that role is to be attached to and provide constant support and security during the formative years. Later, that role is to be available as the child needs periodic help during their excursions into the outside world.¹

Mary Ainsworth

Mary Ainsworth would develop many of the ideas set forth by Bowlby in her studies. In particular, she identified the existence of what she calls “attachment behavior”, examples of behavior that are demonstrated by insecure children in hopes of establishing or re-establishing an attachment to a presently absent caregiver. Since this behavior occurs uniformly in children, it is a compelling argument for the existence of “innate” or instinctual behavior in the human animal.

The study worked by looking at a broad cross-section of children with varying degrees of attachment to their parents or caregivers from strong and healthy attachments to weak and tenuous bonds. The children were then separated from their caregivers and their responses were observed. The children with strong attachments were relatively calm, seeming to be secure in the belief that their caregivers would return shortly, whereas the children with weak attachments would cry and demonstrate great distress under they were restored to their parents.

Later in the same study, children were exposed to intentionally stressful situations, during which nearly all of them began to exhibit particular behaviors that were effective in attracting the attention of their caregivers – a keen example of attachment behavior.²

Hazan and Shaver

Early on, one of the primary limitations of attachment theory was that it had only really been studied in the context of young children. While studies of children are often instrumental in the field of developmental psychology, that field is ideally supposed to address the development of the entire human organism, including the stage of adulthood. In the 1980s, Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver were able to garner a lot of attention, then, when they turned attachment theory on adult relationships.³

In their studies, they looked at a number of couples, examining the nature of the attachments between them, and then observed how those couples reacted to various stressors and stimuli. In the case of adults, it would seem that a strong attachment is still quite important. For example, in cases where the adults had a weak attachment, there were feelings of inadequacy and a lack of intimacy on the part of both parties. When attachments were too strong, there were issues with co-dependency. The relationships functioned best when both parties managed to balance intimacy with independence. Much as is the case with developing children, the ideal situation seemed to be an attachment that functioned as a secure base from which to reach out and gain experience in the world.

Criticisms of Attachment Theory

One of the most common criticisms of attachment theory is that non-Western societies tend to offer up compelling counter-examples. For instance, in Papua New Guinea or Uganda, the idea of a child being intimately attached to a caregiver is somewhat alien, and child-rearing duties are more evenly distributed among a broader group of people. Still, “well-adjusted” members of society are produced, indicating that, at least in these societies, some other mechanism is acting in the place of the attachments that are so necessary for Western children.

Evaluation

• Attachment theory states that a strong emotional and physical attachment to at least one primary caregiver is critical to personal development.
• John Bowlby first coined the term as a result of his studies involving the developmental psychology of children from various backgrounds.
• Mary Ainsworth conducted this research, discovering the existence of “attachment behavior” – behavior manifested for the purpose of creating attachment during times when a child feels confused or stressed.
• Hazan and Shaver (1987) used the “Love Quiz” to demonstrate the applicability of attachment theory to adult romantic relationships.
• Attachment theory has had a profound influence upon child care policies, as well as principles of basic clinical practice for children.
• Critics of attachment theory point out the lack of parental attachment in many non-Western societies.

What causes emotional attraction? Are physical attributes the primary factors that determine attraction or is similarity more important?

We all know how it feels to be attracted to someone – the old argument still lives on as to whether a person’s looks or personality influence us more, but let’s looks at what does attract people to each other.

Physical Attraction rules…

This factor is one of the most researched elements of attraction between couples. Good looking people, charismatic or dull, have a tendency to attract people the most. But does it override other factors, such as personality, wit and wealth? Walster put this to the test:

… or does it?

While we can idealise about dating the most attractive person we know, the rules of mathematics dictate that this can’t happen to all of us (at least at the same time). The matching hypothesis proposes that we are attracted to people who roughly similar to us in terms of aesthetics and personality. Why? Well, dating someone similar to us has two main advantages:

1. We can achieve a balance between the two, without a more enviable partner running off with another, more attractive person
2. By being attracted to someone on our level of looks, people are less likely to be rejected by someone else if they are better looking

Does this hypothesis hold true? In 1966, Walster decided to put this to the test with a Computer Dance experiment. Walster advertised a matchmaking dance, and admitted the first 376 men and 376 women for $1 each. Four judges then assessed each attendee’s attractiveness, while the people were asked to complete a questionnaire supposedly to help the organisers ‘match’ couples using a computer. What the questionnaire really aimed to do was to find similarities, but the people were eventually matched with dancing partners randomly, regardless of whether they were more or less physically attractive than one another. The dance was held 2 days later, with people knowing only the names of their partners. Therefore, they had only the night on which to base their impressions of their partners.

At the end of the night, partners self-assessed how attracted they felt to their partners. Those with more physically attractive acquaintances were more attracted to them, seemingly disproving the matching hypothesis.

Overview to Rational Emotive Therapy as a treatment in psychology. Includes explanations of different developments in the RET field and an evaluation of the treatment.

Rational Emotive Therapy

Rational Emotive Therapy, sometimes called Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, is a form of therapeutic psychology that emerges from behaviorism. It attempts to use reason and rationality to recognize self-defeating cognitive processes, and learn to emote more appropriately. Effectively, the idea is that subconscious destructive behaviors are consciously acknowledged and then subverted in favor of more constructive behavior.

Mental Wellness Goals of RET

The basic idea behind rational therapy, as it was originally called, was first developed by Albert Ellis in the 1950s. Although Ellis had originally done work in the field of Behaviorism, he would later become convinced of the causal nature of cognitive processes. Specifically, he would develop a model of behavior that involves a continuous interplay between environment and the internal mental state.

In Ellis’ view, one’s cognitive processes including one’s view of life and one’s expectations of the world, determine the ways in which one interacts with life. For example, a depressed person might deal with others with a defeated attitude, whereas a non-depressed person might deal with others more confidently and charismatically. Unfortunately, when interactions go poorly (as a result of the attitude with which they were undertaken), that poor outcome can reinforce the problematic attitude, making the issue worse in the future.

For Ellis, the acronym “ABC” offered insights into how to overcome self-defeated behaviors and cognition. The “A” here stands for adversity, which can mean the everyday obstacles and difficulty that everyone is forced to deal with just as a consequence of interacting with the world. The “B” stands for belief, and concerns whether or not the individual in question believes that a positive outcome is possible, or whether or not the adversity really can be overcome. The “C” represents the consequences that arise as a result of the belief. Generally speaking, an individual undergoing some form of rational therapy would be taught that having negative beliefs reinforces and contributes to negative outcomes, and that having positive beliefs about confronting adversity naturally leads to good results.¹

Joe Gerstein – SMART Recovery

One of the primary goals of rational emotive therapy is to achieve a state of “mental wellness”. Whereas other forms of therapy might have goals such as unearthing repressed psychodynamic conflicts, or identifying periods of intense distress that occurred earlier in life, the idea here is somewhat more abstract, and definitely more “curative”.

For the rational emotive therapist, the goal to achieve is a state wherein the client is able to emote and behavior in a manner that is more constructive and perceptive, and permits them a better quality of life. In other words, the goal is to diminish or even totally eradicate the self-destructive beliefs and cognitive processes that lead to disappointing or upsetting interactions with the world.

For many in the field, the key to this goal is a concept known as “unconditional positive regard”. The idea is that one treat themselves with a general sense of goodwill and positivity, regardless of any conditions or circumstances. This doesn’t mean, naturally, that one avoids self-criticism altogether, but rather simply that one should generally feel as if one is in control of one’s life, and that one has the capability to do things well and achieve positive outcomes in the face of adversity.

“Mental wellness”, as the rational emotive therapist views it, was introduced as an important concept to the field fairly recently, by the founder himself, Albert Ellis.²

Criticisms

While some question the application of psychological therapy techniques outside of a controlled clinic setting, rational emotive therapy has had a lot of success in the area of addiction recovery. In particular, the organization SMART Recovery, has been using rational emotive therapy principles in their practice for decades now, to great success.

Joe Gerstein, the founder of SMART Recovery, attempts to identify the self-destructive beliefs that “sabotage” client’s interactions with the world, and to help them readjust their expectations and approach to life. Billed often as a secular alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous and similar twelve step programs, SMART Recovery has met with its share of success.

Conclusion

Rational Emotive Therapy, like most cognitive behavior therapies, has met with a great deal of criticism over the years. For example, many claim that the discipline as a whole is too rational, and that it “overlooks the emotions”. For founder Albert Ellis, this is an absurd proposition. Ellis holds forth that emotion and thought are intricately related to one another, and that one can’t divorce one from the other. In other words, by increasing one’s rationality, one controls one’s emotional problems.

Additionally, many have indicated that rational emotive therapy tends to have the most success when dealing with depression or any of the varying neuroses. By contrast, psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia have proven much more resilient. In fact, there is very little evidence that behavior-oriented therapies such as this one have any impact at all upon schizophrenia. Evaluation

• Rational Emotive Therapy was founded by Albert Ellis as an attempt to help people improve their behaviors by controlling their cognitive processes.
• Ellis famously used the “ABC” model to explain his discipline, with the A standing for the adversities one faces, B for the beliefs one has about those adversities, and C for the consequences that stem from those beliefs.
• A fundamental idea of Rational Emotive Therapy is that cognition influences our interactions, and that those interactions reinforce our underlying beliefs (and cognition).
• For most rational emotive therapists, the goal is a state known as “mental wellness”. When one is mentally well, one’s beliefs allow one to react to adversity with confidence and flexibility, permitting constructive rather than destructive interactions with the world.
• Some psychologists such as Joe Gerstein have found rational emotive therapy to be useful in overcoming addiction.
• Critics sometimes claim that rational emotive therapy is too rational and overlooks the emotions. Ellis refutes this and says instead that thought and emotion are too interconnected for such a claim to even make sense.

Guilt prevents me from seeing life as good, as worthwhile in itself ; it neutralises aesthetic enjoyment of the world. Guilt focuses on my failures in life.

The self-pity mode knocks out all meaning in anything and my motivation collapses ; to survive it I become rigid and accept dogmatic rules. I become a perfectionist in my work. In this mode arises the need for psychological support, for a confessor or a confidante, and I embrace authoritarian methods of control. Without support, life becomes unreal. I practise a different form of homeliness from jealousy � I keep my house tidy.

The self-hate mode belittles me as a person, I am not worth anything. My motivation is retained but my self-image is pitiable. I have no value (either individually or socially). My faith in my own abilities becomes eroded. I romanticise the life of simpler, less intellectual (therefore more �grounded�) peoples as my life transforms into purgatory. To survive I develop concepts of purity and cleanliness ; only sexual practice that is �pure� is acceptable. In my homeliness I keep my house clean. When self-hate is intense I feel sick of my past life, my life is a wasted life ; I wish that I could forget my past so that I can start afresh.

Stress management involves a lot of strategies and techniques that it would take more than just this article to discuss them all. However, there is perhaps nothing more popular than relaxation, or the soothing and clearing of mind and physical distractions in order to improve focus and weed out negative feelings and thoughts.

Several stress management coaches say that relaxation techniques are probably the most effective of all, because people can easily adjust to them, that is, if they’re serious in trying to reduce their stress levels. In addition, stress management relaxation techniques are also easier to perform and relatively less costly that enrolling in a stress management class. They can also be performed at one’s own pace, time and location.

However, experts recommend that before anyone attempts at any relaxation technique, he or she should make sure that it doesn’t interfere or clash with any kind of stress relieving medication he or she is taking. Since a lot of drugs already function as calmers, the physiological effects of relaxation techniques might contradict the existing treatment and leave you at a greater loss and in a much greater level of stress.

Stress is not something that is to be taken lightly. If left untreated, it could lead to physical ailments, like heart conditions, ulcers, hypertension and other disorders. Thus, while it is still manageable, you should employ stress management relaxation techniques and nip the problem at the bud.

The most common among the stress management techniques is meditation. You will be asked to go to a quiet room where there are no distractions and exercise regular breathing patterns. Meditation is a mental exercise aimed at gaining control over your attention and weeding out any kind of distraction, in order for you to choose what to focus on, instead of being subject to the unpredictable turn of environmental factors.

Most people find it difficult to concentrate at first, but, once you get the hang of it, you could find yourself in a meditative state for more than an hour without even noticing it. People who have succeeded in achieving this calm meditative state have said that they feel refreshed after the session.

There is no single way to find out which stress management relaxation technique will work best for your particular situation and need. Thus, it is inevitable that you will go through a trial-and-error phase before you start.

Relaxation techniques, like meditation, as well as other strategies, such as autogenic training, yoga and progressive relaxation, will not stand when taken on their own. They must be done in conjunction with other methods in order for you to reap the maximum benefits of stress reduction strategies.

Stress is something you can fight. If you just employ the right techniques, you will be able to reduce them significantly and walk through life on a more positive note. If you find that anything bothers you, don’t lash out and scream just yet. Have the discipline to take a step back and assess the situation first before you make any move. You will find that even a one-second delay will do wonders.

Christine P. Gray

Perhaps one of the highest sources of stress among adults is the workplace. It is where they spend nearly half of their waking lives. While spending a lot of time at the office is not necessarily destructive for all, the fact that most jobs involve repetition, tense environments and various kinds of people and personalities is often reason enough for some to feel as if work is bearing down on them heavily.

A lot of people, especially the ones that earn the highest salaries, complain that their jobs are the ones that are giving them the highest amounts of stress. While those who belong to the rank and file seem to be the most busy of all workplace levels, because they are the ones who are usually tasked to perform the more menial duties, it is the executives and the other higher-ups who are actually more prone to workplace stress.

This is because aside from having to make huge decisions that affect the entire office, executives hold responsibility for everyone and are the ones who are made most accountable for any victory and glitch or mistake. Thus, the pressure is bigger on them, as opposed to the rank and file who merely follow orders.

More and more offices nowadays place importance on taking care of their employees. This is because a happy employee spells greater productivity. In order for workers to do better at their jobs, bosses should always seek to feed their morale. This is often done via yearly office sports events, parties and stress management and self-improvement seminars.

Some of the more popular stress management seminars offices send their employees to are the Franklin Covey seminars, like What Matters Most and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. While these seminars do not really tackle work matters directly, they help staff respond better to any job that is given to them.

If stress management seminars are not being offered at your workplace, you can always manage your stress by yourself. Taking a short walk around the office block or simply getting yourself a cup of coffee and chatting up with colleagues during break time will help jumpstart your dwindling mood and set you up for another few hours of desk tasks. A change of scenery, even if it’s just for a few minutes, will do you good.

Even if you don’t leave your work desk, you will find that simply trying to clear your head of distractions and the work at hand for around five minutes will do wonders to your mood for the day. Simple meditation techniques like closing your eyes and breathing deeply can already do the trick. If silence is not your cup of tea, you can also try the various stress busting games available on the Internet to keep you amused for a while. Anything to get your mind off your stressor.

At the workplace, the most effective way to manage stress is not to lash out at it and throw a fit. It will only aggravate the problem. Instead, approach the situation calmly. Once you do so, the better you will be able to deal with it and, eventually, eliminate it.

Christine P. Gray is a recognized authority on stress management.