Erikson's Theory Of Attachment

The idea of attachment was first addressed in psychology by Sigmund Freud, 1856-1939, who believed infants became attached to the person who provides oral satisfaction, which the babies require to survive. In the 1950’s Dollard and Miller also built upon this concept suggesting attachment is a set of learned behaviours, through opulent learning and reward. Humans are altricial, because unlike animals, they cannot walk from birth, and therefore must attach to a caregiver within the first six months to survive. However, these theories have since been discredited and it was Harlow (1959) who began to develop the modern day understanding of attachment. Harlow conducted a lab experiment with monkeys who were separated from their mother at birth and were reared in a cage with two surrogate mothers. …show more content…
The findings were that the monkeys only went to the wire mother when hungry and spent the other 15 hours a day on average with the cloth mother. These findings discredited Freud and Dollard and Miller, instead supporting a more evolutionary theory of attachment. They concluded monkeys must have an interaction or attachment to the surrogate mother in order to be perceived as ‘normal’ as they grew up. Erik Erikson’s (1968) stage theory of development suggested that trust in infants was developed through the physical comfort and attraction they formed to not only the primary care giver, but also other human. These foundations would shape the lifelong trust and expectations they have of other human