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Is attachment a universal or a culture-specific phenomenon do children everywhere

have the same patterns of development or does culture determine the trajectory?

Paula Barajas

Psychology 24 #71093

Professor Bhahda

Pasadena City College

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Not every culture is based on the same attachment. Newborns experiencing emotions and

behavior of attachments with their caregiver is universal. Many people go through infancy,

lending to attachments in human development. Attachment is having a strong relationship

between a person or those who are closer to you. All newborns tend to show emotions like

crying, gazing, grasping, and smiling on purpose to get the attention of the caregiver to come

closer or comfort them in their time of need. A psychoanalyst called John Bowlby, introduces his

theory of attachment where he believes that babies are born with a biological behavior of having

the tendency to connect with humans. Although infants develop types of attachments, it is often

found to be universal in all humans. Later as children grow, attachment patterns develop

differently in people in different stages of life.

Bowlbys came up with the idea of attachment theory which explains why we feel happy,

and sometimes sad in the relationship with their caregiver. He states that there are four phases of

attachments in development. First, it is the stage preattachment from birth to six weeks old as

newborn babies are just a few days old, they immediately recognize their mothers voice, dont

mind being left with another unfamiliar adult. The 2nd phase is attachment-in-the-making; infants

six to eight months develop a sense of trust expecting that the mother will come when signaled.

The third phase name clear-cut attachment, babies start to have an attachment towards their

caregiver from eighteen months to two years. At this stage, babies show separation

anxiety when being taken away from their mother. According to Bowlby, he stated that

excessive separation anxiety is due to adverse family experiencessuch as repeated threats of

abandonment or rejection by parent (Bretherton, (1992) it can affect a childs behavior later on
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depending on their environment or situation. Although it does not occur in all children, they can

dictate feeling unhappy, lost, miserable or heartbroken making it universal. It doesnt depend on

one child there are others dealing with the same problem. Finally, formation reciprocal

relationship occurs two years old and soon when toddlers begin to speak, they tend to ask a lot of

questions to understand and built knowledge.

During, the 1st preattachment phase, at only less than six weeks old, infants tend to look

up to their mother for comfort when feeling scared or in danger. At this phase, giving a baby a

loud toy car would make the baby uncomfortable chances are beings to cry and immediately his

mother takes away the car and hugs the baby for comfort. Ainsworth a theorist argues that, a

child, using his mother as a secure base from which to explore ventures out unafraid

(Bretherton, (1992) is a secure attachment in which infants actively seek contact. Infants respond

differently in the 2nd phase, attachment in the making phase, where infants seem to show

different signals towards a caregiver than to someone else. For example, an infant learning that

her behavior can affect someone elses when she beings to laugh, babble, and smile when making

eye contact with her mother is a good sense of trust.

Toddlers in the 3rd phase of clear-cut attachment six to eight months, toddlers tend to display

separation anxiety when the mother leaves the room and someone unfamiliar walks in, the

toddler is now in distress upset for a short amount of time. Though it doesnt always happen in

toddlers, it does occur in many cultures between six to fifteen months meaning attachment is

universal it does not in one specific culture. John Bowlby suggests that, a child to be looked

after entirely by a loving nanny and then for her to leave when he is two or three, or even four or
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five mintues, can be almost as tragic as the loss of a mother (Van Rosmalen, (2016) either a

single caregivers or not having a child placed with a nanny is not always the best alternative.

Switching

a nanny more than twice can cause the child to feel insecure, confuse, and mistrusted making it

harder for them to express themselves. In the 4th phase of formation of reciprocal relationship at

two years old, children start to depend on less from their mother and develop language from their

parents. For example, a two-year boy asks his parents to read him a bed time story to capture and

learn new words with the guide of their parents.

It is wrong to think everyone in a culture has the same attachment. There are two main types

of cultures which are individualist and collectivist. The Individualist are people who define

themselves as independence from other people and that would be USA and Europe. Collectivist

are people who define themselves as part of a group like Japan and Brazil. It would be hard to

match both cultures to have the same attachment if everyone is raised differently.

Many people go through infancy and develop types of attachments experiencing emotions and

behavior with their caregiver which is universal. It is fascinating that infants show signs of

emotions like crying and babbling to get the attention of the mother without being able to talk in

words. John Bowlby theory of attachment is a big thing for an infant to develop like emotional,

physical, and mentally to determine at what phases is the infant growing.

 Reference Page

Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

Developmental Psychology, 28(5), 759.

Van Rosmalen, L., van der Horst, F. P., & van der Veer, R. (2016). From secure dependency to

attachment: Mary Ainsworths integration of Blatzs security theory into Bowlbys attachment

theory. History of Psychology, 19(1), 22-39. doi:10.1037/hop0000015