Attachment Theory and Research. Группа авторов

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Attachment Theory and Research - Группа авторов


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responses none the less persist. During the course of development, it seems, we move from a condition in which we possess only the more primitive response systems to a condition in which we are equipped not only with these but also with the capacity for foresightful action. During maturity the extent to which primitive instinctual responses, action based on foresight, or both in combination are likely to mediate our behaviour on a particular occasion is a complex matter. It is one to which I hope to give further attention in a later paper on defences.

      Before proceeding to a systematic discussion of separation anxiety, I wish to emphasize afresh that, although we have become caught up in sketching part of a revised theory of anxiety, this is not the purpose of the paper. Our problem is that of trying to understand separation anxiety. Adequately to formulate a comprehensive theory of anxiety would require a broader approach: in particular it would need to give close attention to anxiety arising from the threat of psychic disorganization.

      From the foregoing it will be clear that, according to the hypothesis advanced, separation anxiety is initially a form of primary anxiety, with or without the addition of fright, and that, as the infant develops, anxiety based on learning comes to be added. The reasoning behind this hypothesis has already been presented. My confidence in it springs from my belief that it provides a better explanation of observations of infants and young children than do other hypotheses and is enhanced by the fact that it seems also to fit comparable observations of the young of other species. These will be reviewed.

      Mrs. Hayes recounts how Vicki, a female whom she adopted at 3 days, would, when aged 4 months, cling to her foster‐mother ‘from the moment she left her crib until she was tucked in at night. … She sat on my lap while I ate or studied. She straddled my hip as I cooked. If she were on the floor, and I started to get away, she screamed and clung to my leg until I picked her up. … If some rare lack of vigilance on her part let a room’s length separate us, she came charging across the abyss, screaming at the height of her considerable ability.’

      The Kelloggs, who did not adopt their female chimp, Gua, until she was 7 months old and who kept her for 9 months, report identical behaviour. They describe ‘an intense and tenacious impulse to remain within sight and call of some friend, guardian, or protector. Throughout the entire nine months … whether indoors or out, she almost never roamed very far from someone she knew. To shut her up in a room by herself, or to walk away faster than she could run, and to leave her behind, proved, as well as we could judge, to be the most awful punishment that could possibly be inflicted. She could not be alone apparently without suffering.’

      It is of course possible to assume that such behaviour always contains an element of foresight – foresight that physiological needs will not be met. Its strength and immediacy, together with what we know about the primacy of clinging, make this, however, seem unlikely. Furthermore, as was stressed in the previous paper, such a theory is unnecessary.

      Except for being less mobile, human infants during the second half of their first year seem to respond similarly to the lower primates. By this age they have become much more demanding of their mother’s company. Often when she leaves the room they are upset and do their utmost to see that contact with her is resumed, either by crying or following her as best they can. Such protest behaviour, I am postulating, is accompanied initially only by primary anxiety.

      Later, in both humans and chimpanzees, conditioned and expectant anxiety develop as a result of learning. Their development in chimpanzees is of course well attested. Comparing Gua with their son, who was 2½ months older than she, the Kelloggs report: ‘Both subjects displayed what might be called anxious behaviour (i.e. fretting and crying), if obvious preparations were being made by the grown‐ups to leave the house. This led (in Gua) to an early understanding of the mechanism of door closing and a keen and continual observation of the doors in her vicinity. If she happened to be on one side of a doorway, and her friends on the other, the slightest movement of the door toward closing, whether produced by human hands or by the wind, would bring Gua rushing through the narrowing aperture, crying as she came.’ From this account, it seems clear, by a process of learning Gua was able to anticipate and so to avoid the danger of separation.

      Similarly with human infants: it is signs that mother is going to leave them that come to evoke conditioned and expectant anxiety most commonly. At what period during the infant’s first year the capacity for foresight develops is difficult to say. Experiment, however, should be easy. If Piaget’s views are confirmed we should expect it to be present from about 9 months.

      Not only do attachment behaviour and anxiety responses appear similar in humans and other species, but the same is true of fright responses in the absence of the mother. In such circumstances the young of many species freeze. Robertson noted this in young children soon after starting observations in 1948. Before a child had got to know him and whilst therefore he was still a frightening stranger, a young child in hospital would occasionally respond to his approach by suddenly becoming immobile, as if trying not to be there, though watching him intently the while. In the course of observations made in connexion with his film study, Robertson (1953a) was able to record this response on two occasions when a strange male colleague approached Laura (he himself by this time having become a familiar and reassuring figure). On each occasion Laura reacted by lying down with eyes closed and failed to respond as she usually did to Robertson’s friendly words: indeed only a flicker of the eyelids showed she was not asleep. When told that the man had gone, however, she at once sat up.

      If now we return to our account of chimpanzees it is especially to be noticed that, as in the case of Vicki, Gua became strongly attached to a particular figure. In her case it was the male foster‐parent, who in fact did most for her: ‘Her attachment became so strong that she had been in the human environment for fully a month before she would let go of the trouser leg of her protector for any length of time, even though he might sit quietly at a table for as long as an hour. Almost without respite she clung to him in one way or another. If through a temporary lapse in her vigil he should succeed in taking a step or two away from her, it would surely precipitate a frantic scramble after the retreating


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