Attachment and Culture

Abstract

This article proposes to reconceptualize attachment theory as a culture-sensitive framework. First the seminal contribution of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth are recognized in proposing a new paradigm for understanding children’s development, synthesizing the interdisciplinary knowledge of relationship formation present during the 1950s (Bowlby) and developing a fieldwork approach in combination with quasi-experimental procedures in the laboratory (Ainsworth). It is argued that students of attachment theory have expanded the framework with respect to the intergenerational transmission and the organizational nature of attachment, relations with psychopathology and clinical applications, and its psychophysiological foundation. It is further argued that attachment theorists were not responsive to developments in evolutionary sciences and cultural/anthropological approaches of parenting and child development. From an evolutionary perspective, contextual variability is crucial to meet the purpose of adaptation. It is demonstrated that the assumptions of monotropy, the conception of stranger anxiety, as well as the definition of attachment in mainstream attachment research are in line with the conception of psychological autonomy, adaptive for Western middle-class, but deviate from the cultural values of many non-Western and mainly rural ecosocial environments. In the concluding paragraph, a strategy is proposed for an empirical research program that would contribute to the cultural foundation of attachment.