MATERNAL BEHAVIOR AND INFANT SECURITY IN OLD MONKEYS: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES AND A METHODOLOGICAL BRIDGE BETWEEN HUMAN AND NONHUMAN PRIMATE RESEARCH

Abstract

Research on nonhuman primates played an important role in Bowlby's (1969/1982) interpretation of human infant attachment as an adaptive behavioral control system. The psychological interpretation of this model in terms of the secure-base phenomenon (Ainsworth, 1967, 1973) was similarly influenced by field and laboratory observations of nonhuman primates. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, interactions between experts in human infant attachment and nonhuman primate behavior were frequent and mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, and to the disadvantage of both areas, such interactions are now rare. The discovery of qualitatively different patterns of attachment among human infants was an important source of this divergence; for much of the 1970s and 1980s, attachment research focused almost exclusively on individual differences, psychometric issues, and construct validation (e.g., Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Sroufe & Waters, 1977; Waters, 1978; Waters & Deane, 1985). Recently, language and cognition have taken significant roles in attachment theory and research (e.g., Oppenheim & Waters, in this volume; Owens et al., in this volume). These trends, constructive in themselves, have diminished the relevance and accessibility of attachment study to field and experimental primatologists.1