John Bowlby Attachment Theory

During the 1940’s, psychologist John Bowlby strongly believed early emotional connections between mother and child are an imperative part of human nature. He believed that because newborn babies are completely defenseless they are genetically programmed attach to their mothers in order to survive. He also believed that mothers are genetically programmed to be protective of their young, commonly feeling the need to keep their babies near them at all times. These ideas formed the foundation of Bowlby’s theory which were the stepping-stones of exploring the deep-rooted importance of the mother-child bond and the repercussions associated if this bond is impaired or broken, which would later come to be known as attachment theory.
Bowlby was born in London to a middle class family, where he was the fourth child of six siblings. He was raised by nannies and attended boarding school since the age of seven, which is a huge reason why he was sympathetic to studying early maternal emotional bonds. Later in life he attended Trinity College where he majored in psychology and he also took an interest in teaching delinquent children. Even later in his life he would graduate med school and earn the title of psychoanalyst. In Word War II he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and married in 1938 to a woman named Ursula Lognstaff which he had four kids with. At the end of the war he was the director of the Tovistock Clinica staying until retirement. In 1950 he carried out a major experiment regarding early emotional bonds between mothers and their children for the World Health Organization. He died when he was eighty-three. He famously said “Attachment behavior is held to characterize humans from the cradle to the grave”.
Before John...

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...use during this period women were encouraged to stay in the home to watch their children and avoid working. In the 1970’s more experiments were completed by Thomas Weisner and Ronald Gallimore exhibiting that mothers were sole caregivers in a very small percentage of the population and in most families children were raised with other relatives like aunts, uncles, and even close friends. Schaffer also has proof that demonstrates children with mothers who are more successful in their careers excel better in life than children with mothers who are aggravated from being home all day.
Despite the controversy surrounding Bowlby’s work, it stood as a foundation for much groundbreaking work surrounding the issue of early emotional bonds. Because of John’s Bowlby’s findings, conditions in parenting improved in institutions such as orphanages and residential nurseries.