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The Attachment Theory

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It has been thought that the childhood years are a time for preparation into adulthood. What children learn from early relationships during these years has a huge impact on their interaction with others during adulthood. Attachment is an emotional bond that is from one person to another, the attachment theory is a psychological theory that focuses on relationships between the caregiving and child. An infant will have to develop a relationship with a caregiver in order for them to develop socially and emotionally. Infants need to possess the social, emotional, and intellectual skills to achieve and flourish in this society. From the time that an infant is born, the people around him or her influence the child’s way of thinking towards any given relationship and this could lead to a healthy adult relationship; that is infant attachment. The attachment theory was presented by John Bowlby; he defined attachment as “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”. Bowlby began studying the distress levels of an infant when they are separated from their mothers, and these findings opposed the behavior theory of attachment. The behavior theory of attachment indicated that a child becomes attached to the mother because she fed the infant, but when Bowlby observed the infants being fed by strangers they did not indicated any distress or anxiety (Mcleod, 2009). That’s when he came to the conclusion that attachment could be influenced by environmental circumstances, and the earliest bonds formed between caregiver and infant improves the child’s chance of survival. Attachment is ongoing and adaptive; it is a pattern of interactions between the caregiver and infant. Through evolution, infants have a need for intimacy when under distress and that proximity that they seek is an indication of attachment. During the evolution of human beings, infants who stayed close

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