The functions of attachment have often been contested and challenged over time, with the field radicalising over the years. Bowlby suggested that attachment in infants is due to the evolutionary pressures put on them; this essentially means the need to carry on our genetic line. When some young animals are born they seek proximity to their mother, they do this as a form of security, mainly to protect themselves from predators. In doing so, they are more likely to reach adulthood, and become able to pass their genes onto the next generation. This theory is obviously influenced from Darwin’s theory of evolution in ‘survival of the fittest’, only the most well adapted animals will continue their genetic line. Although Darwin’s theory is the most widely accepted, Bowlby’s ideas of attachment were wildly refuted, and see as too farfetched. The function of attachment being primarily for evolutionary purposes can be criticised mainly for how there is little way of testing it.
In 1959 Harlow conducted an experiment with the aim to find out whether rhesus monkeys would show attachment to an object which provided food, or to an object that provided comfort. A baby rhesus monkey was separated from its mother after birth and kept in confinement with an option between a soft surrogate mother, or one made from wire that simply provided the monkey with food. His findings were that the infant monkey would spend as much time as possible clinging to the soft model, and would only occasionally cross to the wire model for food when it was desperate. This shows that infants do not attach to their mother simply for evolutionary purposes, but for comfort. Furthermore the findings prove that rhesus monkeys prefer comfort over food in terms of survival. Although Harlow’s conclusion opened up a new theory in the work of functions of attachment, his conclusion can be criticised for generalising. Just because a baby rhesus monkey performed the way it did, does not necessarily mean a human child will act the same. Moreover, as adults the rhesus monkeys showed unusual signs of social behaviour, and were often violent to themselves and others. When it came to being parents, the monkeys involved in the experiment where indifferent to their children. This evaluation actually supports Bowlby’s suggestion that without a proper secure attachment in infancy, humans can grow to generally behave poorer than somebody who did form a healthy attachment with their mother/care-giver, and could even be considered to have a higher chance of having mental health problems.
Bowlby’s theory was stemmed from work done by a psychologist called Lorenz. Lorenz thought that some animals are genetically programmed to develop attachments to their mother, he named it ‘imprinting’. The suggestion of this was that a baby animal did not necessarily have to form an attachment to its birth mother, to develop properly. The infant could have a secure attachment to pretty much anything or anyone, and would associate the object as their care-giver. Lorenz observed how newly hatched goslings and ducklings would follow the first moving object they saw, and see it as their mother. Even when they had matured, the birds would try to court and even attempted to mate with humans, if they were imprinted to them. Similar to Harlow’s criticism, the study can’t be generalised to humans, as we’re very different creatures. The study can further be criticised for being purely observational, which lacks validity, and could involve researcher bias. However the process of the experiment was carried out very empirically, which makes it more reliable, as it can be repeated.
To summarise, psychologists have been coming up with new theories on the functions of attachment for sixty odd years, however there is still no definite singularity for the primary reason of attachment, to whether it is innate, or purely learned, and for what purpose. Newer theories are constantly being developed, with entirely new suggestions, or ideas that either prove or disprove previous theories. In the end it is usually a combination of many psychologists’ theories, that all combine to become credible reasons for the functions of attachments.