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15.1: What is Ainsworth’s conceptual question and theoretical context?

  • Page ID
    9343
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    Contrasting Perspectives on Attachment: Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Gewirtz

    In order to illustrate how assumptions about humans and their development shape theories, research, and interventions, we selected sets of theories on which students could practice their “understanding” skills that are all focused on the same target phenomena, but that approach it from different meta-theoretical perspectives. There are many such sets of theories, and we offer descriptions and analyses of a few examples in subsequent chapters (see Chapter 6 for contrasting theories of motivation and learning). In this chapter, we follow up on theories of attachment, and finish “understanding” Ainsworth and Gerwirtz, before we begin comparing and contrasting their assumptions about infants, caregivers, and the development of attachment relationships.

    What is Ainsworth’s conceptual question and theoretical context? Although students sometimes have difficulty articulating the “theoretical question” guiding Ainsworth’s view on attachment, we often find that once the class has finished understanding Bowlby, Ainsworth’s theoretical question becomes clear. Since Ainsworth builds on Bowlby, and Bowlby is focused on the species-wide bio-behavioral predispositions that underlie the general formation of attachment relationships, it becomes clear that Ainsworth’s theoretical question is something like, “What is the basis for individual differences in the quality of attachment relationships, and how do these individual differences shape children’s subsequent development?” So Bowlby is asking the normative question (i.e., “How do attachment Chapter 4. Contrasting Theories: Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Gewirtz 2 relationships typically form?”) whereas Ainsworth is asking a question about differential pathways of development (“How do different kinds of attachments form?”).