Bowlby Attachment Styles

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Research on attachment styles began with Bowlby, who hypothesized that attachment starts after birth between an infant and a caregiver. After a child is born, how a caregiver reacts to their needs starts a bond of attachment. This bond sets the stage for how the infant will later understand and react to relationships of all types continuing throughout the child’s adulthood. According to Bowlby (1969) there are three types of attachment styles. The first attachment style is secure. Secure attachment is when a person has a positive view of themselves and a positive view of others. If a parent is consistent and warm towards their child throughout infancy, they are most likely to be securely attached in their future relationships. The second type, …show more content…
It is further divided into two categories: dismissive and fearful, but because these two are extremely similar they have been combined together for this research paper. Bowlby (1969) also combines the two types of avoidant attachment styles in his research. The main difference between the subcategories is dismissives have positive views of self but refuse to rely on other individuals due to their fear of interpersonal closeness. Fearfuls do not have the positive self-view and therefore think negatively about everything they are and do in a relationship as well as fear interpersonal closeness. Both share a fear that individuals are not reliable enough to support them which leads them to believe that trusting other people is dangerous. They tend to be introverted and have few friends and when dealing with a problem, they are least likely of all the attachment styles to reach out for social support from friends or romantic partners alike. Due to their fear of relying on others, they view low person-centered messages as more comforting when communicating; a person-centered message is characterized by “legitimization and validation of feelings experienced by the emotionally upset person…[and] are evaluated on [whether they were] beneficial and helpful, and they also make people feel better” (Jones, 2005, pg. 234). By not using or being told person-centered messages, it allows them to distance themselves emotionally from the person and event. Seeing as how they avoid relationships and intimacy, this comes as no surprise. In their relationships, Dillow, Goodboy, and Bolkan found that they show lower levels of affection in romantic relationships (2014 pg. 110, pg. 105). Avoidant-attached men especially have been found to be less affectionate and communicative than women in their interpersonal relationships (Monteoliva, García-Martínez, Calvo-Salguero, & Aguilar-Luzón, 2012, pg. 337). This could be due to both the attachment style and
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