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13.5.1: Early Research on Attachment

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    225494

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    Learning Objectives
    1. Summarize Freud’s psychoanalytic explanation of infant attachment.
    2. Explain Harlow’s research findings and how they challenged earlier beliefs about attachment.
    3. Define contact comfort and describe its role in the formation of attachment.

    Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory

    According to Freud (1938) infants are oral creatures who obtain pleasure from sucking and mouthing objects. Freud believed the infant would become attached to a person or object that provides this pleasure. Consequently, infants were believed to become attached to their mother because she was the one who satisfied their oral needs and provided pleasure. Freud further believed that the infants will become attached to their mothers “if the mother is relaxed and generous in her feeding practices, thereby allowing the child a lot of oral pleasure,” (Shaffer, 1985, p. 435).

    Harlow’s Research

    Until Harlow published his research on attachment, the scientific community generally agreed with Freud that nourishment was the primary reason infants attached to their mothers. In the 1950s, Wisconsin University psychologists Harry and Margaret Harlow investigated the responses of young rhesus monkeys to explore whether breastfeeding was the most important factor in attachment. Infant monkeys were separated from their biological mothers, and two surrogate mothers were introduced to their cages. The first mother (the wire mother) consisted of a round wooden head, a mesh of cold metal wires, and a bottle of milk from which the baby monkey could drink. The second mother was a foam-rubber form wrapped in a heated terry-cloth blanket.

    Monkey clinging to the cloth mother surrogate in fear test.
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Infant monkey clinging to cloth mother surrogate. Image by Psych Net is licensed under CC 0.

    The infant monkeys went to the wire mother for food, but they overwhelmingly preferred and spent significantly more time with the warm terry-cloth mother. The warm terry-cloth mother provided no food but did provide comfort (Harlow, 1958). The infant's need for physical closeness and touching is referred to as contact comfort. Contact comfort is believed to be the foundation for attachment. The Harlows’ studies confirmed that babies have both social and physical needs. Both monkeys and human babies need a secure base that allows them to feel safe. From this base, they can gain the confidence they need to venture out and explore their worlds.

    References, Contributors and Attributions

    Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

    Freud, S. (1938). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. Hogarth Press.

    Gillath, O., Shaver, P. R., Baek, J. M., & Chun, D. (2008). How does attachment security shape social networks? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(4), 422–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207311699

    Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13(12), 573–585. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047884

    Shaffer, D. R. (1985). Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence. Brooks/Cole.

    This page titled 13.5.1: Early Research on Attachment is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Heather Carter.