Compare the research on attachment provided by Harlow, Bowlby, and Ainsworth. How are they similar? How are they different?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Ans: Harlow came to believe that the primary function of nursing a baby might actually be to provide contact comfort with the mother, and that this contact comfort created the mother–infant attachment, not feeding as the behaviorists and psychoanalysts believed. Bowlby believed Harlow’s research with monkeys confirmed his suspicions that a psychoanalytic explanation for attachment was not adequate. Ainsworth was interested in assessing and classifying different types of emotional security.
Bowlby also was intrigued by a new theory based on the observation of natural behavior of animals. Ainsworth described four types of attachment: secure attachment, anxious avoidant attachment, anxious ambivalent/resistant attachment, and disorganized/disoriented attachment. Two behaviors that Ainsworth found best identified the type of attachment relationship infants had with their mother were (1) the child’s ability to be comfortable and explore a new setting while the mother was in the room, with the mother acting as a secure base for exploration and (2) the child’s response to the mother’s return to the room, known as reunion behavior, as assessed by whether a child who was stressed by the mother’s departure was able to use the mother after her return to calm down and return to playing.