Attachment and Health
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed attachment theory in the 1960s while investigating the effects of maternal separation on infant development. The development of the Strange Situation task in 1965 by Ainsworth and Wittig allowed researchers to systematically investigate the attachment system operating between children and their parents. The Strange Situation involves separating infant-parent dyads and observing infant behaviours upon reunion. Infant behaviour tended to follow patterns, leading to the development of three attachment categories: Secure, Anxious-Avoidant, and Anxious-Resistant. In 1990, Ainsworth added a new category, championed by Mary Main, called Disorganized/Disoriented attachment, characterized by its less reliable pattern of behaviour.
Attachment theory
Across different cultures deviations from the Strange Situation Protocol have been observed. A Japanese study in 1986 (Takahashi) studied 60 Japanese mother-infant pairs and compared them with Ainsworth's distributional pattern. Although the ranges for securely attached and insecurely attached had no significant differences in proportions, the Japanese insecure group consisted of only resistant children with no children categorized as avoidant. This may be because the Japanese child rearing philosophy stressed close mother infant bonds than in Western cultures. In Northern Germany, Grossmann et al. (Grossmann, Huber, & Wartner, 1981; Grossmann, Spangler, Suess, & Unzner, 1985) replicated the Ainsworth Strange Situation with 46 mother infant pairs and found a different distributions of attachment classifications with a high number of avoidant infants: 52% avoidant, 34% secure, and 13% resistant (Grossmann et al., 1985). Another study in Israel found there was a high frequency of an ambivalent pattern which according to Grossman et al. (1985) could be attributed a greater parental push toward children's independence. Although it has been debated for years, and there are tedious differences amongst cultures, research shows that the three basic aspects of Attachment Theory are in fact universal. The Hypotheses are: 1)that secure attachment is the most desirable state, and the most prevalent. 2) maternal sensitivity influences infant attachment patterns and 3) specific infant attachments predict later social and cognitive competence.