Eskimo Family NGM-v31-p564-2 by George R. King. – 300 ppi scan of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume 31 (1917), page 564.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – 
Annotated Links
Adoption The Adoption History Project has a brief section on the impact of Anna Freud’s work on separation and lack of attachment in children.
Mary Ainsworth: A Biography and Overview Linda M. Woolf’s students in an advanced seminar at Webster University, St. Louis, designed this web page on Karen Horney as part of a larger project on Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society.
Adult Attachment Overview and basic terminology of adult attachment theory and research by R. Chris Fraley.
An Attachment Primer: Fundamentals of Attachment Theory Presents a brief overview of attachment theory.
Attachment Training Alan Sroufe and June Sroufe provide information about attachment in the John Bowlby-Mary Ainsworth tradition and training in the assessment of attachment across the lifespan along with a primer on attachment theory, a list of suggested basic readings, and more.
Are American Becoming Less Secure? The Science of Relationships website reports In a recent meta-analysis , researchers combined data from 94 different samples, involving more than 25,000 American undergraduate students, collected between 1988 and 2011. In 1988, 49% of people said they had a secure attachment style (51% were insecure in one form or another). By 2011 there was a 7% decline in security, with 42% reporting that they were secure (vs. 58% insecure). Posted December 2014.
John Bowlby’s Papers The Wellcome Library, London, dedicated to the understanding of medicine and its role in society, past and present maintains an online collection of John Bowlby’s papers in their Archives and Manuscripts Database.
Commitment-Phobic Adults Could Have Mom and Dad to Blame A study of the romantic history of 58 adults aged 22-28 found that those who avoid committed romantic relationships are likely a product of unresponsive or over-intrusive parenting according to research by Sharon Dekel and Barry Farber published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease and summarized here in ScienceDaily, December 10, 2012.
Detachment Virginia Hughes, writing for Aeon Magazine describes the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, in which Romanian orphans living in orphanages were randomly assigned to foster care or to stay in the orphanage. Preliminary results suggest that children raised in foster care showed gains in IQ, healthier psychological development, better motor skills, different EEG brainwave patterns when looking at emotional faces, and more white matter than children left in orphanages. This fascinating study, begun in 2000 and continuing today, raises ethical, social, and political questions as it vividly demonstrates the power of social interaction and attachment. Published July 29, 2013.
Exploration in Toddlers Activated by Fathers Fathers give toddlers more leeway and that allows them to actively explore their environments, according to a new study on parent-child attachment by Daniel Paquette and summarized in Science Daily, April 1, 2010.
Family “Type” Can Affect Kids At School The way a family interacts at home can affect how kids do in school, a study suggests today in the journal Child Development by Melissa Sturge-Apple and colleagues and summarized in this article from USA Today, July 14, 2010. The researchers identified three kinds of families: cohesive, disengaged, and enmeshed families. Children from disengaged families started school with the most problems, showing aggressive behavior and trouble cooperating. Children from enmeshed families entered school without problems, but later developed anxiety, loneliness, and alienation. On average, children from cohesive families showed the fewest problems.
Genetic Basis Of Musical Aptitude: Neurobiology Of Musicality Related To Intrinsic Attachment Behavior Music is social communication between individuals — humming of lullabies attach infant to parent and singing or playing music adds croup cohesion. The neurobiology of music perception and production is likely to be related to the pathways affecting intrinsic attachment behavior, suggests a recent Finnish study. The study gives new information about genetic background of musical aptitude. This summary, from ScienceDaily, May 27, 2009, summarizes the research of Liisa Ukkola and colleagues at the University of Helsinki and the Sibelius Academy.
History and Current Research From the site: Reports and commentary on attachment theory and research from Everett Waters, Judy Crowell, Harriet Waters and colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook and the New York Attachment Consortium. A library of researchers’ publication lists and on-line articles. Attachment measures for infant- mother, childhood, parenting, and marriage research. Course materials. Announcements and summaries of special events. Links to attachment related sites. Special Bowlby and Ainsworth sections. And a gallery of attachment artifacts and observations in the Bowlby – Ainsworth tradition.
I (Don’t) Want 2 B w/ U: Texting, Sexting, and Avoidant Attachment Those who are high in avoidance tend to be uncomfortable with intimacy, want less closeness in their relationships, and distrust others more. And when it comes to electronic communication with partners, it turns out that avoidance also is related texting and sexting behaviors, but in different ways. This, according to the Benjamin Le writing for The Science of Relationships, April 13, 2015.
Is There Hope for the Insecurely Attached? Yes, according to Erica Djossa writing for Science of Relationships. In this piece she describes two categories of secure attachment: continuous secures and earned-secures. Earned-secures started out with an insecure attachment in infancy that developed into a secure attachment style later. This provides evidence for a secure buffering effect in which an insecure individual may come to show more secure attachment behaviors if they are in a relationship with a secure partner.
Mother-Son Relationship Key to Emotional Development Children, especially boys, who have insecure attachments to their mothers in the early years have more behaviour problems later in childhood, according to research by Pasco Fearon and summarized in Science Daily, March 29, 2010.
Overview including a description of the strange situation, attachment styles, and adult attachment styles.
Overview including a review of the work of Bowlby, Ainsworth, the strange situation, and the four childhood attachment styles.
Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research From the website: Research on adult attachment is guided by the assumption that the same motivational system that gives rise to the close emotional bond between parents and their children is responsible for the bond that develops between adults in emotionally intimate relationships. The objective of this essay is to provide people who are new to the field–or people who may simply be interested in learning more about research on adult attachment–a brief overview of the history of adult attachment research, the key theoretical ideas, and a sampling of some of the research findings.
Summary of Research on the Strange Situation Writer Jeremy Dean of the UK maintains PsyBlog. In this blog, he often presents current research, debunks psychological myths, or summarizes interesting lines of research for a lay audience. In this entry, he summarizes research on the Strange Situation.
Why Was Darth Vader So Evil? Blame His Lack of Parental Care, Say Psychologists Why was Darth Vader such a bad dude? According to a team of psychologists led by Peter Jonason, it’s down to his lack of parental care: the fact he was separated from his mother at age 9, and his father’s absence. The researchers believe such circumstances can catalyse the emergence of the Dark Triad of personality traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy. These traits are usually seen as negative, but Jonason and his colleagues believe they may be an adaptive response to tough early circumstances that signal to a child life is bad. From BPS Research Digest, August 5, 2014.
Young And In Love? Thank Mom and Dad, At Least A Little Teenagers’ relationships with their parents have a small but measurable impact on their romantic relationships up to 15 years later, according to researchers at the University of Alberta according to research published in the Journal of Marriage and Family and summarized here for NPR, February 2014.
Your Most Awkward Friends May Save Your Life Your insecure and anxious friends may be better that your secure friends at detecting impending danger and acting quickly according to research by Tsachi Ein-Dor and colleagues, and summarized here in LiveScience, August 17, 2011.
Assignments, Exercises, and Activities
Teaching Students About the Science of Romantic Attachment Nathan DeWall and David Myers describe a series of activities to help students think about attachment and why our romantic partners may get under our skin. Includes background reading, self-assessment, an out-of-class activity, and discussion topics.
Current Researchers and Research Team Pages
Adult Attachment Lab of Phillip R. Shaver and his colleagues at UC Davis. Find a description of their current projects, PDFs of papers, measures, links, and more.
R. Chris Fraley: Research Visit this page to learn about the research of Chris Fraley on attachment theory and close relationships, personality organization, dynamics, and development, Social cognition and affect regulation, evolutionary psychology, and dynamic modeling, simulation, and psychological methods. Includes links to selected publications in PDF format.
History and Current Research From the site: Reports and commentary on attachment theory and research from Everett Waters, Judy Crowell, Harriet Waters and colleagues at SUNY Stony Brook and the New York Attachment Consortium. A library of researchers’ publication lists and on-line articles. Attachment measures for infant- mother, childhood, parenting, and marriage research. Course materials. Announcements and summaries of special events. Links to attachment related sites. Special Bowlby and Ainsworth sections. And a gallery of attachment artifacts and observations in the Bowlby – Ainsworth tradition.
Electronic Texts
Bretherton (1982) A PDF of Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, Developmental Psychology, 28, 759-775.
Examples and Illustrations
Anxious-Avoidant Duos: Walking on Thin Ice in Relationships and Physical Health Writing for Science of Relationships, Jena Lempke describes how Disney’s hit movie Frozen depicts how varying preferences for closeness in people with different attachments styles can lead to relationship problems. She describes how the friction between the sisters Elsa (with her avoidant attachment style) and Anna (with her anxious attachment style) was caused by their different attachment styles.
What Attachment Style is The Bachelorette’s Andi Dorfman? Erica Djossa writing for the “Science of Relationships” blog explains her evidence for why this latest eligible lady from the reality TV series may have secure attachment, even though secure attachment doesn’t make for “juicy reality TV”. July 15, 2014.
Lecture Notes
Slide Presentations
John Bowlby John Bowlby: Understanding His Shadow a slide presentation by Daniel Berry at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, November 18, 2005. (Scroll down and click on “John Bowlby” in the schedule.)
Tests, Measures, and Scales
Global Attachment: Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ) The RSQ is a 30-item questionnaire requiring participants to rate, on a 7-point scale, the extent to which each statement describes their characteristic style in close relationships (1 = not at all like me, 7 = very much like me). Items are summed to create two subscales, corresponding to the dimensions of avoidance and anxiety. Developed by Griffin, D., & Bartholomew, K. (1994).
Self-report Measures of Adult Attachment Phillip R. Shaver, University of California, Davis and R.Chris Fraley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have written this extensive overview of concepts, measures, and measurement issues. Includes PDFs of scales and research articles using the scales.
Multimedia Resources
Attachment Theory and The Cider House Rules Maureen Mack, of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, has put together an interesting slide presentation using scenes from the movie The Cider House Rules to illustrate principles of attachment theory. She asks that you respect copyright laws and intellectual properties rights by crediting [her] as the writer and developer of the presentation. (Beck is discussed in Part 2).
Contact Comfort: Harry Harlow Monkey Experiment In this excerpt from an early documentary on the monkey studies of Harry Harlow, Harlow demonstrates how a baby monkey raised in isolation prefers the contact comfort of a warm, terry cloth mother to a wire mother with food. (2 minutes, 6 seconds).
Fear: Another Experiment By Harry Harlow In this excerpt from an early documentary on the monkey studies of Harry Harlow, Harlow demonstrates how a baby monkey raised in isolation will seek out the safe haven of a warm, terry cloth mother when frightened (33 seconds).
Social Isolation: Harry Harlow Studies with Monkeys Excerpt from a movie on attachment showing how newborn baby monkeys, separated from their mothers, when given a choice between a cold wire mother with milk or a soft mother without, chose comfort over food. Early separation led to social problems as these monkeys grew up, demonstrating the importance of contact with a caregiver. (1 minute, 11 seconds)
PsychAlive: Dr. Dan Siegel on Avoidant Attachment in infants and adults Published March 3, 2011. Runs 2 minutes, 3 seconds.
PsychAlive: Dr. Dan Siegel on Ambivalent Attachment in infants and adults Published March 3, 2011. Runs 1 minute, 55 seconds.
PsychAlive: Dr. Dan Siegel on Disorganized Attachment in infants and adults Published March 3, 2011. Runs 5 minutes, 29 seconds.
PsychAlive: Dr. Dan Siegel on Optimal Attachment in infants and adults Published March 3, 2011. Runs 1 minute, 4 seconds.
Psychogenic Disease in Infancy (1952) This classic film by Rene Spitz (1952) provided additional evidence for the attachment theory of John Bowlby by documenting the impact of maternal deprivation on children’s emotional and social development. Today, the Prelinger Archives preserves this film and makes it available for downloading or online streaming. (runs 19 minutes and 13 seconds).
Secure, Insecure, Avoidant & Ambivalent Attachment in Mothers & Babies This brief video clip features the analysis and voice-over of Everett Waters, as three mothers and babies react to the strange situation by showing patterns of secure, avoidant, or ambivalent/resistant attachment. Runs 3 minutes, 39 seconds.
The Strange Situation – Mary Ainsworth This brief video clip illustrates the Strange Situation used to assess attachment using a 14-month old girl who shows secure attachment with her mother. Runs 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
Strange Situation Separation and reunion of a securely attached infant and his father in the strange situation. (53 seconds)
Strange Situation Presents video of a mother and secure child going through Ainsworth’s Strange Situation. A voice over explains each part of the Strange Situation protocol, which the baby reacts (runs 5 minutes and 24 seconds).
This Emotional Life From the website: “The Emmy Award-winning team of Vulcan Productions and the producers of NOVA have created a three-part series that explores improving our social relationships, learning to cope with depression and anxiety, and becoming more positive, resilient individuals. Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness, Professor Daniel Gilbert, talks with experts about the latest science on what makes us tick and how we can find support for the emotional issues we all face. Each episode weaves together the compelling personal stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research along with revealing comments from celebrities like Chevy Chase, Larry David, Alanis Morissette, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Richard Gere. The first episode, Family, Friends & Lovers, looks at the importance of relationships and why they are central to our emotional well-being (includes an excellent overview of Attachment theory). In the second episode, Facing Our Fears, we look at emotions that are commonly regarded as obstacles to happiness — such as anger, fear, anxiety, and despair (includes a discussion of Anger, Depression, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Stress and Anxiety). The last episode, Rethinking Happiness, explores happiness. It is so critical to our well-being, and, yet, it remains such an elusive goal for many of us” (includes Creativity and Flow, Forgiveness, Happiness, Humor, Meditation, Resilience). See more about the people and stories featured on the series, view selected video clips, learn more about the topics mentioned, find information about resources and support organizations, and purchase a DVD.