Internal working model of attachment
Internal working model of attachment is a psychological approach that attempts to describe the development of mental representations, specifically the worthiness of the self and expectations of others' reactions to the self. This model is a result of interactions with primary caregivers which become internalized, and is therefore an automatic process. John Bowlby implemented this model in his attachment theory in order to explain how infants act in accordance with these mental representations. It is an important aspect of general attachment theory.
Marinus van IJzendoorn
Van IJzendoorn's main research topic is attachment across the life-span. Attachment has been briefly defined as children's "strong disposition to seek proximity to and contact with a specific figure and to do so in certain situations, notably when they are frightened, tired or ill". Inspired by Darwinian evolutionary theory and Harlow's experimental work with rhesus monkeys, John Bowlby was the first to propose that human genetic selection had favoured attachment behaviours since they increased infant-parent proximity, which in turn enhanced the chances for infant survival. Attachment is considered to be an inborn capacity of every exemplar of the human species. Individual differences in the quality of attachment emerge in the first years of life, and central to attachment theory is the idea that parenting, more specifically parental sensitive responsiveness to the infant's distress signals, determines whether children develop a secure or an insecure attachment relationship with their primary caregiver. Van IJzendoorn introduced in 1995 the quantitative model of the ‘transmission gap’ between parents’ attachments and their infants’ attachment as mediated by parental sensitive responsiveness. This model generated a host of empirical studies trying to bridge the gap (see for a meta-analysis of this work).