Secure Attachment and Successful Relationships

Human Development across Lifespan
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“Secure attachment was once viewed as important for infant development. More recently,
it has been deemed the most important ingredient for successful relationship formation,
strong self-identity & confidence to function and achieve in our lifetime.”
The purpose of this essay is to enlighten the reader about the life span developmental theory in
wellbeing. The essay highlights information about the impact of secure attachment in creating
effective relationship in the environment. The statement says that secure attachment at a time
was looked as an important aspect in infant development which is now looked as an important
factor in creating successful relationship in the environment. The below mentioned essay explain
the statement while evaluating the concept of developmental theory in the environment. Further,
adult attachment theory is also explained in the paper which is a stem of life span developmental
theory. The latter part of the essay highlights positive and negative aspects of the above
mentioned statement.
The fact should be noted that secure attachment plays a lead in creating an effective relationship
among the caregiver and children in the environment. It helps the caregiver in creating a bond
and effectively maintaining it as well. Infant easily get to develop their personality and grow
mentally as well as physically with the help of secure attachment in the environment. Secure
attachment can be explained with the help of children who show distress when their caregiver
leave them but are also composed because they will come back the other day. Children that feel
secure attachment sense protection by the caregivers and have complete faith on them as well
(Fonagy, 2018). The attachment theory was coined by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth which
explained the ways in which a relationship of parent and children grows and how it influences
their subsequent behaviour in the environment. Furthermore, there are four stems created from
this type of theory that are ambivalent attachment, secure attachment, disorganized attachment
and avoidant attachment. Further, it should be noted that with the help of secure attachment, the
infants get to trust people in the environment and develop a bond with them as well. Along with
this, it should also be noted that there are various other factors as well that acts an important
ingredient in creating a successful relationship in lifetime (Bowlby, 2018).
According to Bowlby, attachment is all or nothing process whereas some of the researches
explained that there are distinct differences in attachment quality while it is an important
paradigm in attachment theory that is security of an individual’s connection. The form of

attachment of an individual differs from that of a middle age person. The level of sociability in
people also differs as some babies prefer cuddling while others prefer interaction and then
physical touch. It can be easoly known that when a person is attached to other person because
when the other person is apart then they can easily feel it and express the feeling through words
as well. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth established an assessment technique that is called Strange
Situation Classification which aims to investigate that how attachment varies between kids
(Fonagy, Luyten, Allison, & Campbell, 2018). The secure attachment concept between one to
two years old people is being investigated in the paper using SSP model. An experimental
procedure was developed to observe the variety of attachment forms exhibited between mother
and an infant. The experiment is initiated in a small room to analyse series of eight episodes that
are mentioned below:
1. Mother, baby, and experimenter
2. Mother and baby
3. An outsider joins the mother and baby
4. Mother leaves the baby with stranger alone
5. Mother returns and stranger goes
6. Mother leaves and baby is left completely alone
7. Stranger comes back
8. Mother comes back and stranger leaves (McLeod, 2018)
The attachment styles are based majorly on the four above mentioned episode. The behaviour of
the baby is analysed on the basis of four aspects that are:
 Proximity and contacting seeking
 Avoidance of proximity and contact
 Contact maintaining
 Resistance to contact and comforting
Along with this other observed behaviour might be exploratory, search behaviour and display
negative behaviour (Fearon, 2017). Further, on the basis of the main attachment styles, behaviour
is discussed below: