Real-World Applications of Attachment Theory

Abstract

Attachment theory has its roots in an ethnocentric complex of ideas, longstanding in the United States, under the rubric of “intensive mothering.” Among these various approaches and programs, attachment theory has had an inordinate and wide-ranging influence on a wide range of professions concerned with children (family therapy, education, the legal system, and public policy, the medical profession, etc.) inside and outside the United States. This chapter looks critically at how attachment theory has been applied in a variety of contexts and discusses its influence on parenting. It examines the tension distortion that often results when research findings are translated into actual applications or programs, ignoring any particularities of cultural context. It describes how attachment theory has been used as the basis for child-rearing manuals and has influenced programs and policies more directly, to form legal decisions that affect families, as well as to develop public policy and programs. Specific attachment applications are reviewed and their validity questioned. Because child-rearing practices vary among cultures, the value systems that motivate these different practices must be recognized and accounted for when applications are developed and implemented. It concludes with a call for researchers to become proactive in rectifying misuses of attachment theory.

Social Psychological Theory as History: Outlining the Critical-Historical Approach to Theory

“…Yet, interdisciplinary scholars have recently come together to propose a systematic revision of the theory, based both on a critical assessment of its shortcomings when applied to public policy and a recognition of its narrow historical, cultural, and sociological vision (see esp. Carlson & Harwood, 2014; Gaskins et al, 2017; Rosabal-Coto et al, 2017). These efforts represent a productive example of wedding mainstream theory to a more critical-historical approach and generating a new framework in the process, rather than discarding wholesale contributions from one epistemological vantage.…”

Bringing the Real World Into Developmental Science: A Commentary on Weber, Fernald, and Diop (2017)

“…The intervention and evaluation of the RPP program are based on long‐standing assumptions regarding “universal” characteristics of good care and healthy child development that are implicit in developmental science and based on Western cultural views (see Morelli et al., ; Rosabal‐Coto et al., ). For this reason, we use the Weber et al.…”

Factor Analysis of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System Replicates the Three Domain Structure and Reveals no Support for the Bifactor Model in German Preschools

“…This focus is not surprising considering the central role of attachment theory in both German ECEC research and pedagogical praxis. Preschool teachers are trained to take on the role of the sensitive mother ( Rosabal-Coto et al, 2017 ). Free play is qualified as a core activity, because children often decide what they want to do.…”