The affective bond that forms between a child and their parent (or caregiver) is called the attachment relationship. Unlike other, equally important relationships, it is based on physical and emotional dependence, on the need for comfort, and on the child's vulnerability.

In the 1950s, the psychoanalyst J. Bowlby showed how essential it is, for a child's harmonious development and for the quality of their future relationships, to receive care that is not only physical but also emotional, and the security instilled in them by a calm, stable relationship with whoever is looking after them.

It's interesting to note that the evidence Bowlby gathered on children separated from their families is consistent with the findings Harlow obtained through cruel experiments on Rhesus monkeys. Infant macaques were separated early from their mothers and placed in cages with two «surrogate» mothers: one made of wire, which could deliver milk through a bottle, and one covered in soft cloth, which offered no food. The infants clung to the «soft» mother to satisfy their need for warmth and protection, which turned out to matter more than food. These same monkeys, once they became mothers themselves (through artificial insemination, given their complete lack of interest in relating to other monkeys), showed no attentiveness toward the infants they abandoned: the lack of a gratifying attachment relationship in their own early life had left them unable to form one with their own young.

The way the attachment relationship is experienced therefore affects, in both animal and human offspring, the ability, as adults, to form relationships, and the quality of those relationships.

There are various signs of attachment that a child shows from the second half of the first year of life onward. They appear:

  • through distress when the mother moves away;
  • through fear of strangers, showing that the child is now able to distinguish between someone who makes them feel protected and someone they don't know;
  • through seeking out one particular person when needing to be comforted, or in new situations that call for reassurance.

Careful observation of children in daily life, together with the use of a standardized procedure devised by Ainsworth (a student of Bowlby), has made it possible to define various attachment styles, which, depending on their characteristics, can be described as

  • secure
  • insecure
  • disorganized

We will explore in more depth, in an upcoming article, what the Strange Situation is and what these differences consist of.

cf. J. Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Bollati Boringhieri, 1999