Attachement

Attachment is essential for socio-emotional development in infants. It refers to the close emotional bond between an infant and its caregiver.

John Bowlby believed that attachment experiences in infancy shape one's sense of security and social relationship development throughout life.

Harry Harlow showed the importance of contact comfort in attachment by placing infant monkeys with two artificial mothers: one made of cold wire and another covered in warm, fuzzy cloth.

Even though the wire mother provided food, the monkeys preferred the cloth mother for comfort when frightened.

This demonstrated that infants form attachments with caregivers based more on contact comfort than feeding.

Mary Ainsworth expanded on this with her "strange situation" experiment, assessing how children reacted to brief separations and reunions with their caregivers.

Children with a secure attachment used their caregiver as a reliable base for exploration, showed distress when the caregiver left, and sought comfort upon their return.

Conversely, insecurely attached children either avoided their caregiver or showed anxiety when reunited.