On the Shaping of Attachment Theory and Research: An Interview with Mary D. S.

Ainsworth (Fall 1994)

Author(s): Mary D. S. Ainsworth and Robert S. Marvin
Source: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development , 1995, Vol. 60,
No. 2/3, Caregiving, Cultural, and Cognitive Perspectives on Secure-Base Behavior and
Working Models: New Growing Points of Attachment Theory and Research (1995), pp.
2-21
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1166167

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Society for Research in Child Development and Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON THE SHAPING OF
ATTACHMENT THEORY AND RESEARCH:
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARY D. S. AINSWORTH
(FALL 1994)

Mary D. S. Ainsworth and Robert S. Marvin

I. ON THE ORIGINS OF THE CONCEPT OF THE SECURE BASE

Robert Marvin.-Your doctoral dissertation, written at the University of

Toronto, focused on the security of adult relationships and was supervised
by William Blatz-what was the core of Blatz's position, and was he influen-
tial in shaping your own thinking about the concept of security?
Mary D. S. Ainsworth.-Very much so. Blatz focused on the warmth and
comfort that a parent can give to the baby and on the importance of starting
off by making the child feel secure. He believed that, given a background
of feeling secure, the infant would interest himself in what goes on around

Editors' note.-This interview with Mary Ainsworth was conducted by Robert Marvin
at our request. We are deeply grateful to Bob for making it possible to elicit the memories
and thoughts of one who has been so fundamentally influential in shaping the direction
of attachment theory and research; without Bob's readiness to collaborate, these comments
would have remained unrecorded. To Mary Ainsworth, who acquiesced to our request
with the generosity and grace that have always marked her behavior toward colleagues-
and particularly toward her "extended family" of attachment researchers-our gratitude
remains unbounded. The transcript of the conversation was cut and edited to fit the
requirements of this written presentation; however, all Ainsworth's points are reflected
faithfully in what follows, and we have tried to preserve as much of her conversational
style as possible.

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Photograph ? Daniel Grogan

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

him and want to move out to explore his world. And, should such explora-
tion get him into more than that infant was ready to cope with, it was
crucially important that the parent be accessible-that the baby be able to
retreat to his "secure base" for comfort and be, as it were, "recharged"
before going off again on his own. I first encountered Blatz's thinking-
which was brand new, quite original as far as I know, and certainly not like
anything that Freud wrote-in a course that I took from him in my fourth
undergraduate year, and it was his notion of this nice "back-and-forthing"
of the baby, the idea of building a secure base from which one can explore,
that struck me most and attracted me to his thinking.
RM.-Did your early exposure to Blatz's ideas influence your subse-
quent receptiveness to Bowlby's ideas?
MDSA.-Yes, I saw the thinking of both as going in very similar direc-
tions. Blatz and Bowlby had no opportunity to influence each other-they
were each working quite independently on how early relationships get estab-
lished and how this then affects the child's further development, and I think
they both happened to be observing the same kind of phenomena and that
this led to their theories being so compatible.
RM.-When was it that you first became aware of John Bowlby's think-
ing, and when and how did you come to know him?
MDSA.-I wasn't aware of any of his thinking before I met him. That
happened in 1950: I arrived in London in the fall of that year without a
job (despite previous efforts to obtain one through correspondence) and
looked up a friend, Edith Mercer, whom I got to know during the war when
we were serving as "opposite numbers" in our respective armed services. She
soon phoned me about a position that was being advertised in the London
Times and that she thought might interest me. The ad sought someone who
was an expert in child development and in projective techniques to work
on a project investigating the effects of a young child's prolonged separa-
tions from the mother on personality development. I applied, and I was
promptly interviewed by John Bowlby for that position. [With a hearty laugh.]
What can I say? ... We liked each other! We both liked the same researchers
and clinicians who were working on similar issues at the time, and we found
we were thinking along the same lines. I got the job, and, as in fairy tales,
"they lived happily ever after!" Over the 3 years that I worked there, I
continued to be struck by how much Bowlby's and my thinking moved in
the same directions.
RM.- What kind of work did this job involve?
MDSA.-At first, John had me read all the existing literature on separa-
tion-I spent about year doing that and also becoming familiar with the
two projects that he had going on at the time. One of these was a follow-up

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

study of school-aged children who, when they were quite young, had spent
long periods separated from their parents in a TB sanatorium, and the
other was Jimmy Robertson's study of a particular group of young tubercu-
lar children. This was an intensive, clinical study that involved frequent
visits to the homes-and it turned out to be just my sort of stuff!
I was placed on Jimmy's project after that first year to use my talents
in looking for individual differences; originally, John had wanted me to do
Rorschachs on this group, but that turned out not to be practical. The
materials with which I worked were social workers' handwritten reports of
the home visits they had conducted, and I began to notice several patterns
in the way in which these children's "personalities" were organized that
seemed pertinent to the experiences they had had.
So, as you can see, the approach and methods that I went on to use in
Uganda and in Baltimore really had their beginnings in my work with Blatz
and then with John Bowlby and Jimmy Robertson . .. though, as I think
about it, what is really more correct to say is that the interaction among
John, Jimmy, and myself completely changed John's original research proj-
ect and eventually led to Infancy in Uganda as well as all three volumes of
Attachment and Loss.

RM.-You told me once that, when you went to Uganda, you were
not as yet convinced of the validity of Bowlby's thinking, that it was your
observations of the Ugandan infants and mothers that you found so compel-
ling. First, was it Bowlby who encouraged you to do direct observation
(perhaps as Leaky had encouraged Jane Goodall), or was your focus on
naturalistic observation inspired by some other source?
MDSA.-Actually, it came from having familiarized myself so thor-
oughly with the work of Jimmy Robertson. All of his data on mother-child
interactions and relationships-which were very compelling in indexing the
effects of prolonged early separations-came from visiting the children in
their homes and separation environments and observing as well as listening
to what transpired. The power of his observations in reflecting what was
going on and communicating it effectively to others impressed me very
much, so I took direct observation as my own model.
RM.-Was there any particular observation, or set of observations, that
you made in your Ugandan work that became particularly influential in
your subsequent thinking?
MDSA.-In seeing these babies on numerous occasions as they inter-
acted with their mothers within the home, I think the thing that struck me
most was how active babies are and how much it is they who take the initiative.
They are not passive little things to whom you do things; in fact, in many
ways they are the initiators of what happens to them. The picture that you

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

got in those days from the literature was one of a passive infant who merely
reacted to whatever the environment did to him, and that was the notion
with which I first arrived in Uganda.
Another common belief that I had learned from reading Freud, as well
as various other writers, was that what underlies the baby's tie to his mother
is the fact that it is she who feeds him-the infant's pleasure in being fed
gives preeminence to the figure of the food provider and becomes the basis
for forming an attachment bond. The idea that infants' attachments could
develop for any other reason was almost unheard of. It took the writings of
Bowlby-who had been influenced by the work of ethologists, particularly
Lorenz's work on imprinting-to open up people's minds to the notion that
other mechanisms might in fact be responsible. My observations in Uganda
gave me firsthand evidence that what I had been taught could not be sup-
ported-that feeding could not be properly conceived as being the "prime
mover" of attachment bonds.

RM.-What particular observations were most fundamental in origi-

nally shaping your distinction between secure and insecure patterns of at-
tachment?

MDSA.-My observation protocols took special note of instances of cry-

ing and of the conditions under which it occurred, and it became evident
to me as I went on that both the amount of crying and the circumstances
in which the crying took place provided a central behavioral distinction.
Babies who would be identified as securely attached did relatively little cry-
ing except, for instance, if they woke up and the mother wasn't there or if
the circumstances were such that they had reason to believe that mother
was going to leave them. The ones that seemed insecure in their attachment
fussed a lot of the time; anything could set them off, and there wasn't this
clear picture that it was the distance from the caregiver that was responsible
for the crying.
RM.-These are patterns you could never have discerned had it not
been for repeated observations?
MDSA.-Oh, you're absolutely right-you can't really learn much
about the relationship between a baby and the mother if you only see them
once. You might say here, "Well, how about the Strange Situation, which
is designed to elicit artificially what it might take a long period of observa-
tion in the home to notice?" Yes, you can indeed learn a lot from brief ob-
servation under such conditions, but, if the assessment hadn't been built
on the basis of a lot of expectations derived from observations in the nat-
ural environment, there would have been no validity to the laboratory
situation.

RM.-I understand that you were not much in touch with Bowlby
during your stay in Uganda but that, when he visited you after your return

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

to Baltimore and became aware of your views concerning the secure-

base phenomenon, he described the similarities to his thinking that he
saw in yours as "a pleasing and encouraging convergence of ideas." Is that
so?

MDSA.-Yes, he did say it, I think in one of his talks. [With a chuckle.]
I do remember that, at one point during my stay in Uganda, I became quite
concerned that John's use of Lorenz's work to support arguments against
the preeminence of feeding as a mechanism for forming attachments might
come to hurt him-that using baby chicks' behavior to argue against an
entrenched psychoanalytic position might ruin his reputation! I even wrote
him a gently worded letter in this regard-but, as it turned out, I needn't
have worried.

RM.-It seems as if the concept of secure base as you first conceived

it in your Ugandan work has proved robust enough to serve virtually un-
changed throughout your career. Is this correct, or have your ideas in fact
changed in some significant way?
MDSA.-The core concept of using the mother as a secure base from
which to explore the world has not changed; what has evolved are elabora-
tions of how different patterns of relationships are built in the course of
the child's particular experiences in seeking to use the mother as this secure
base. At least as a starting point for observation and research, I have never
seen any need to change what was already partly incorporated in the theo-
ries of Blatz and Bowlby.
RM.-You once told me that, while doing the observational work in
Uganda, you experienced a real paradigm shift. Can you say something
about it here?

MDSA.-The transition I made from thinking in psychoanalytic terms

to thinking in terms of ethology felt very much like what I later read Kuhn
describe as a "paradigm shift." It was a sudden, total, and permanent change
in perspective-I simply couldn't conceive of viewing what I observed in
any other way. [With a chuckle.] In my many disagreements with behaviorists,
I finally came to realize that, since they had never experienced this new way
of looking at things, I really couldn't expect them to understand what I was
talking about-and, although it made our quarrels useless, it did enable me
to feel vastly superior!

II. ON UNIVERSALITY AND CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

RM.-Turning to another topic, attachment theory conceives of the

attachment control system as being part of our evolutionary endowment.

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

Does this mean we should expect to see infants organize their secure-base
behavior in a similar fashion across all cultures, or should we expect to see
this organization differ somewhat in different ecological settings?
MDSA.-Both. At the most fundamental level, there is a biological
basis that determines the emergence and general shape of the behavioral
organization-I think that environmental influences play no significant
role in the infant's basic need for an attachment figure who can be trusted.
But culture-related differences in ecologies and expectations will certainly
affect how some specific aspects of that organization are expressed under
particular conditions-I am thinking here, for instance, of proximity
seeking.
RM.-As an example of what you are saying, are you thinking of the
work that the Levines and I did with the Hausa, where living huts contained
open fire pits as well as potentially dangerous tools and animals and babies
did not explore under their own locomotion but were always carried around
and handed from person to person-and yet we found that, despite this
constant physical contact with numerous people, a distressed baby would
want contact with an attachment figure, and a very distressed one would
want only his or her primary attachment figure?
MDSA.-Yes, that's a very good example of part of what I mean. But
I'm also thinking here of the atypically high incidence of insecure attach-
ments that characterized Karin Grossmann's sample drawn in north (as
opposed to south) Germany. Here, after behaving in ways resembling the
typical interactions of securely attached mother-child pairs, cultural mores
seemed to dictate that, some 3 months earlier than in other samples, the
mother say, "This is enough-it's time that my child learn to be indepen-
dent, to look after himself, and not to need me anymore." Even if done
gently, this is very rough on a baby who has learned the definite expectation
that "of course mother will pick me up! I've given her all the signals, she
knows that I want her . .. and, hey, she's not doing it! and deliberately not
doing it, by God!"
Some of the mothers evidently behaved in ways that fostered insecurity
from the outset, but I do believe that this sudden and (from the baby's point
of view) totally unexplainable shift in maternal behavior acted to make some
previously secure attachments change into insecure ones. I do think that
the two patterns of insecurity-those of babies who had an earlier "security-
fostering" relationship and those of babies who did not-are likely to differ,
but I am not sure exactly how, and I certainly think it's something very
worthwhile pursuing.
My intuition is that mothers who come to reject their child's proximity
bids as a matter of principle-"because this is the way to do things, it's

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

the way my mother taught me"-may not be as consistent in rejecting the

baby's requests and desires. That surely must have some effect, but I
don't have a sense in exactly what direction. In any event, I have always
believed that it was essential that we observe infants in more than one
culture-that's what took me to Uganda. There are probably far, far mo
similarities across cultures during this early period than has ever been
acknowledged.
RM.-Extending this line of thinking, let me ask you about work o
species other than humans. First, how influential do you think this kind of
work was on Bowlby's thinking, and, second, how much has it influenc
your own formulations?
MDSA.-I think that Lorenz's work on imprinting was very importan
to John Bowlby in pointing out the direction that his thinking would take.
And Harlow's studies, as well as Robert Hinde's work, were very influent
in extending his perception of the similarities between humans' and oth
species' behavior-in a sense, he saw it as verification of the validity of h
evolutionary perspective on human development. As for me ... many o
my best friends have been primatologists and ethologists, and I have always
been fascinated by their work. In fact, I have been reading a lot about
wolves lately, and learning about their complex social organization certainly
enriches one's life as well as enables one to empathize with their behavio
Mainly, however, findings obtained with other species have made me f
that I have been on the right track rather than helping me understand t
specifics of human babies' behavior.
RM.-It seems that, in whatever form, cross-fertilization between at
tachment researchers and those working on nonhuman species has falle
off in recent years. Do you think this is indeed true, and, if so, why did it
come about?

MDSA.-I do think it's true, but I'm not sure why it happened. And
do think it's too bad-contact between these two very different branches
science was good for the young scientists on both sides. Perhaps it has
been partly because most, if not all, attachment research has focused
procedures aimed at distinguishing between secure and insecure pattern
as well as among different patterns of both security and insecurity-and
don't think that most primatologists are interested in this kind of thing
think they are far more concerned with getting more and better field data
and in proposing cause-and-effect relations in an observational way. R
search on human mothers and babies has extended in so many differen
directions: the age at which the attachment relationship-or its represent
tion-is assessed, the figures in the relationship, etc. I think that this ha
moved attachment researchers much further than primatologists in stud

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

ing individual differences ... but, then, I think that's in the nature of the
beast.
RM.-What do you mean?
MDSA.-Well, it's obviously so much more difficult to observe the
development of interactional patterns between, say, a mother bear and
her cub than it is to follow a human mother and infant. And when I
think of what it takes to study porpoises and their offspring! . . . In
event, I think that interest in fieldwork-which is one of the things
had connected the two fields-has been largely lost among human atta
ment researchers. And this is something that I do regret-the
that our emphasis has increasingly focused on measurement rather
assessment.

III. ON CONSTRUCTING ASSESSMENTS AND RESEARCH DESIGNS

RM.-What is this distinction you make between measurement and as-

sessment?

MDSA.-To me, measurement implies assigning numbers that reflect

a precise amount or an equal interval ordering. In my own work I have
focused on classifications of patterns or on matching to behavioral descrip-
tions-and that gives you assessments.
RM.- Let me ask some questions about how your systems of assessment
came into being. First, I have heard it said that the interactive scales we use
to rate Strange Situation observations were developed by cutting up actual
transcripts and ranking the relevant pieces-is that true?
MDSA.-My first reaction is to say, "Preposterous!" But in fact I do
dimly recall something of this sort. Remember that at the time we had no
technologies that could allow us to move information around, so shuffling
about printed excerpts of specific behavioral observations was a very effec-
tive way to get good definitions of scale points. In fact, it's very similar to
what one still does when using a Q-sort deck!
RM.-How about the scales of maternal behavior? How did these de-
velop?
MDSA.-Our narrative transcripts of the home visits were very lengthy,
and they didn't focus on detailed descriptions of specific sequences of behav-
ior, so the "chop them up" approach would not have helped. No, here I
started as I had in Uganda, by asking, "What is there about the behavior
of this mother that is important in making a difference in how the baby
behaves?" And that led to the scale of maternal sensitivity, to differences in

10

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22f on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

how observant and responsive the mother is in dealing with the baby. In
some cases, I started with the negative pole of what became a scale because
the effect of negative qualities on the interaction often can be seen more
clearly. For instance, you see the mother sort of buffet the baby around,
interfere with what he is doing-and it's very clear that the baby doesn't
like it. So I felt this was another dimension we should explore, and, after
looking at the whole range of observations we had made, I decided that
cooperation was the most appropriate opposite end on this particular contin-
uum. At one point I struggled hard to devise a scale of maternal warmth,
but that never worked out.

RM.-Why didn't it, do you think?

MDSA.-Various reasons. For one, it is very difficult to be precis
in defining behaviors that could be criterial in rating maternal warmth
Russel Tracy tried to explore this in our narratives by doing a ver
detailed analysis of all affectionate behaviors, and it became clear that
something as obviously a candidate for "warmth" as kissing could in fac
be a very unaffectionate peck on the cheek or forehead. In a simila
way, the Ugandan mothers' habit of sitting the baby in their laps facin
out rather than en face can look like lack of warmth, but in fact it ha
to do with their concern to create opportunities for exploration for th
child, and the physical contact between the bodies does create an af
fectional warmth-think of how many 3-year-olds like to sit on a parent
lap!
Another reason I gave up is that maternal warmth did not seem to
make much difference in itself-two mothers can be equally warm and yet
have very different effects on their babies. There is a great difference be-
tween maternal warmth and maternal sensitivity, and it took me a long time
to appreciate it.
RM.-Is it perhaps that sensitivity is a response to the baby's initiative
and warmth is more of a general characteristic of the mother?
MDSA.-Absolutely-and this focus on how the attachment figure
supports or interferes with what the baby initiates has served me well all
along.
RM.-So, in characterizing maternal sensitivity, we should make sure
not to forget that it is sensitivity to the baby's initiative that is at issue.
In this context, what do you think enabled you to find such robust rela-
tions between maternal sensitivity and infant security in your Baltimore
study?
MDSA.-The lengthy and repeated home observations on which we
based our maternal ratings certainly had a lot to do with it. But I think
it was also due to the fact that such a wide range of secure and insecure

11

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

patterns was represented in the sample-quite a few studies report an

absence of C classifications in their groups. It could have been luck, or
it could have been that the pediatricians who recruited potential partici-
pants for us tended to select women who interested them-"this one is
a charmer, that one puzzles me, I wonder how motherhood will work
out for this one"-and that this led to our getting a particularly diverse
group.
RM.-Moving on to your classificatory system, why is it that you built
the system for classification of attachment patterns around behavior ob-
served in the laboratory rather than in the home?
MDSA.-Although the classifications are made from behavior in the
Strange Situation, the rationale for assigning particular meanings to these
specific behaviors and their patterning was developed from the significance
of the different interactional patterns that we had observed in the
home-so, in the most fundamental sense, the classification is based on what
we learned in the home. In fact, I have been quite disappointed that so
many attachment researchers have gone on to do research with the Strange
Situation rather than looking at what happens in the home or in other
natural settings-like I said before, it marks a turning away from "field-
work," and I don't think it's wise.
RM.-What is it, do you think, that has led to this focus on Strange
Situation data rather than on home observation?
MDSA.-Partly it's the problem of getting funding-doing observa-
tional work takes an enormous amount of time, especially when it involves
repeated visits to the home. Partly it has to do with the responsibilities
one feels to one's students-getting them involved in research that can be
completed within the time that they have available to them. And in part it
has to do with the "publish or perish" realities of academic life!
RM.-Can you say a bit more about just how you went about con-
structing the Strange Situation and the classifications?
MDSA.-I had seen a lot of separations and reunions in the homes,
a lot of exploration, a lot of proximity seeking, and a lot of differences
in how the baby and the mother behaved in these situations. So con-
structing the episodes of the Strange Situation wasn't hard at all; as I
recall, it took just about half an hour of talking with Barbara Wittig to
decide on the episodes and their sequence-it just came naturally. I was
very interested to see how the baby would handle these various situations
that he encountered in the lab, and the thing that made me feel that I
was really on the right track was that I turned out to be so good at
anticipating what each specific baby would do-that it all was so predict-
able, it hung together.

12

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

RM.-Was it the separations and reunions that you saw at home and
in the lab that hung so well together?
MDSA.-They did-but it was also a matter of how the mother behaved
at home in many other situations; how she responded to cries, to other bids,
to feeding times.
RM.-Do you think that you drew a lot on the observations you made
at the end of the year, when the babies could crawl and you saw them move
away and back to the mother and using her as a secure base, just as you
had seen it in Uganda?
MDSA.-Yes, these were certainly important. They also made me real-
ize that you have to be very careful to think about the child's age, his devel-
opmental status-we had some 12-month-olds who couldn't creep, so they
might just sit there, cry, and hold out their hands.
RM.-Might such underdeveloped locomotion shift a baby's classifica-
tion, perhaps even in some major way?
MDSA.-Oh, I think that's a real concern-there has been so much
variation in the ages of different samples that sometimes they are not babies
anymore. At this point, all you can do is extrapolate; you go by principles
you have devised or acquired without being quite sure how, but you don't
follow the actual rules of the system. I've done a lot of extrapolating myself
in my life, and it doesn't trouble me too much-but then, do other people
do it in the same way as I? Of course, never for a minute do I think that
could be wrong! [Laughter.]
RM.-Turning to another topic, that of research strategies, why do
you think there has been so little work examining patterns of materna
behavior and infant secure-base behavior as they co-occur in actual inter-
action? Most research seems to focus on prediction from one of these two
to the other.

MDSA.-I think this is partly because many researchers think that ask-
ing, "When mother does this, what does baby do?" gets you nothing but
normative description and that that's not very exciting. It's wrong, of course:
all the different patterns of attachment behaviors that we established in the
Baltimore study, and then the concept that these patterns represent the
baby's "strategies"-all these proved to be theoretically very exciting, and all
came about from looking at, "When baby does this, his mother does that,"
over and over again. But it takes a lot of time before this kind of work
comes together, and it's surely easier to publish a lot of papers if you just
look for "significant" correlations! Of course, we did also use the data for
some "predictive" analyses-like Silvia Bell's work on how maternal re-
sponse to crying in an earlier quarter of the baby's first year related to the
baby's crying in a later quarter-and this also was very useful in supporting

13

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

the ideas we were developing about how different patterns of attachment

emerge.
RM.-So are you saying that some attachment research-not all, of
course, but some significant portion-has shifted from a focus on descrip-
tion and understanding toward simple prediction?
MDSA.-I am sorry to say it, but I do think this has been the case.

IV. ON INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND MATERNAL SUPPORT

RM.-The idea that attachment has evolutionary underpinnings sug-

gests that there must be some limits on how it is organized behaviorally.
Suppose that someone observed some pattern of Strange Situation behavior
that departs radically from that of the secure, B babies and also demon-
strated that, in terms of all other significant data, babies classified in this
"new" pattern behave just as those who are currently classified as secure.
Would that pose a problem for attachment theory?
MDSA.-Yes, I'd say it would. But finding that everything in the
mother-child interaction indicates security except for the child's behavior in
the Strange Situation seems so very, very unlikely given all the masses of
data we have accumulated that the question strikes me as being somewhat
nonsensical.

RM. -What if someone discovered a new pattern of insecure behavior?

MDSA.-That would not be all that surprising; there are many more
possible ways of organizing behavioral strategies for coping with an insecure
relationship.
RM.-It seems that infants become attached to their primary caregiver
almost regardless of the care they receive, as long as the relationship doesn't
involve multiple major separations or grave threats to the child's health.
Does this surprise you?
MDSA.-Not at all. It's the presence of the caregiving figure rather than
the caregiving behavior that is essential for the attachment to develop. It's
a bit like Lorenz's work with ducklings-it didn't really matter whether the
mother duck fussed with the little creatures or just did her own thing; if
she would start swimming away, the ducklings would follow. It was her
presence that was the essential thing, and I think this phenomenon of im-
printing was really important to Bowlby's original formulation of human
attachment.

RM.-So does this imply that the development of human attachment

is a fairly close analogue to imprinting?

14

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

MDSA.-To a certain extent, yes. It differs in the human case in that

it needs more time to become effective-it's not that the newborn comes
out of the womb, senses the mother, and hah! that's it! It's something th
stretches out over a much longer period of time.
RM.-Do you think that there may be some particular period in the
first year of life-maybe one in which a lot of different developmenta
milestones in locomotion and communication are being achieved-that m
be particularly important in the consolidation of attachment?
MDSA.-I have a sense that the consolidation is more likely to be mor
evenly spread out, but it may well be that, if we did some intensive research
on this extended early period, we would find evidence that some particul
time is particularly crucial. At this point we just don't know.
RM.-It seems nearly paradoxical that, even though you focused so
much of your work on maternal sensitivity, you are saying that it is not th
mother's sensitivity but just her presence that determines whether the baby
becomes attached.

MDSA.-It is not attachment but the security of attachment that is a

fected by the mother's sensitivity.
RM.-I wonder whether this is widely understood-whether some pe
ple may not think that your work had always implied that babies becom
attached to the person who is the most sensitive to them and that sensitivit
is more important than presence.
MDSA.-If two potential attachment figures are concurrently involve
I can't help but think that their relative sensitivity to the baby might well
affect the growth of the child's attachment-that it would indeed be t
more sensitive of the two who first starts the attachment process going. Bu
I'm not sure that this would necessarily be the case.
RM.-Given what you've been saying, what do you think of what is s
often said to parents-that it's the quality of the time you spend with yo
child, not the quantity, that is important?
MDSA.-There are two issues here. One has to do with the nature of
the relationship, and here you would expect that devoting "high-quality
time" to the child would tend to evolve into a secure relationship. The mere
continued presence of the adult figure has little, if anything, to do with
the quality of the relationship-only with the emergence of some form of
bond.

RM.-In a related vein, if a child is placed in day care for the full day
and from a very early age (say 6 weeks) and is with the mother only in the
evenings and over the weekends, do you think that baby's mother is still
likely to be his primary attachment figure?
MDSA.-Yes. Group-care situations nearly always include multiple

15

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

caregivers, and it is much more difficult to form an attachment with one

individual out of the several who look after the baby and whose presence
is likely to vary day by day. But, if there should be a long-continuing, unin-
terrupted relationship with some caregiver other than the mother, then,
yes indeed, I think you could see the same kind of relationship emerge with
that figure as you ordinarily see with the mother. The crucial point is that
the relationship be continuing and pretty much uninterrupted-under such
conditions, the nonmaternal caregiver can well become an attachment figure
closely resembling that which usually evolves in the relationship with the
mother.

RM.-In the early stages of your work-like when you first went to
Uganda-were you primarily interested in normative questions as opposed
to questions of individual differences?
MDSA.-I think my primary interests were normative. I was very
interested in what "popped in" in terms of behavior, what new acquisi-
tions emerged at what ages, and how well the normative patterns that
I saw replicated what had been observed in the United States and
England-I was very sure that normative similarities would be there. But
that doesn't mean that I didn't expect to see individual differences as
well. . . . I wasn't surprised by them, and I was very curious to see
what circumstances made for these differences, for the departures from
normative patterns.
RM.-The first reports of Strange Situation behavior that emerged
from the Baltimore study focused on the "average" baby's typical responses
to a new environment and to brief separations. What made you then shift
the focus to individual differences-was it differences among babies or
among mothers that caught your eye?
MDSA.-As I said earlier, the home visits led me to have very def-
inite expectations about how individual babies would respond to the
Strange Situation, so obviously differences in babies' behavior did catch
my eye. But these expectations were built not only on the baby's behavior
but also on the mother's-it was the qualities of the many interactions that
I had seen between the two that were behind my perceptions of differ-
ences.

RM.-So, as it has at various points in our conve

that it was the repeated home visits, the gathering of
over a number of months of observation-that this wa
standing what was going on in both your Uganda an
samples.
MDSA.-Indeed it was.
RM.-To move on to debates concerning the determinants of in

16

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

ual differences: arguments concerning effects of maternal sensitivity versus

those of temperament have occupied the field for a long time. Do you think
there is something particular about these two constructs that has made them
so difficult to work with for so long?
MDSA.-I think that what has made them difficult is that we have tried
to force them into an either/or dichotomy, whereas I believe that in fact
there are effects from both. I happened to have focused on maternal sensi-
tivity, on how babies react to the adult's responsiveness, because to assume
that how the baby is treated, that how sensitive or insensitive the mother is
in responding to her child, has no effect-that's impossible, especially if
you have seen a lot of different interactions. But that's not to say that
temperamental differences have no influence on behavior. I think they do,
but, since I also think that the kinds of differences that emerge as a result
of mother-child interaction have more to do with shaping the nature of the
child's later relationships than the child's temperamental qualities, I have
given them more emphasis.
RM.-It seems that, when Bowlby and you first started talking about
attachment theory, you were perceived as being radically biologically deter-
ministic; that, of course, was in the context of the sway that social learning
theory held at that time. Now you are being seen by some as placing too
much emphasis on environmental determinants by focusing so much on
maternal sensitivity. My own impression is that you have in fact stood stock
still over the years and that it's the field that has been swinging like a pendu-
lum around you. [A hearty laugh from Mary.] But to return to the notion of
temperament-what do you perceive it to be?
MDSA.-Well, I remember reading Sheldon's book on the varieties of
temperament many years ago and finding it very interesting. I did know
some people who seemed to absolutely personify some of Sheldon's types.
For instance, I had a professor once who was tall and very skinny, had a
very soft voice, made practically no noise in moving about, and was highly
intellectual-he seemed to have all the qualities that Sheldon ascribed to an
ectomorph and that he thought were genetically determined. And it may
well be that such aspects of personality may have a significant effect on a
person's behavior in many circumstances, but I don't think that they have
any truly basic influence on the kind of relationships that the person will
construct with other people.
RM.--So you think that, although temperamental differences can have
a big impact on how a baby behaves, they are not the major determinant
of whether the child becomes securely or insecurely attached?
MDSA.-Yes, I think it is how the mother responds to the particular
kind of behavior shown by her baby that plays by far the major role.

17

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

V. ON CONTINUITIES INTO LATER YEARS

RM.-The notion that early relationships serve as prototypes for later

ones is viewed by some as being the key concept in attachment theory. What
are your thoughts on this matter?
MDSA.-I don't know that I would call it the key concept because I see
a number of the ideas that I talked about at the beginning of our conversa-
tion as also being "key" in defining what attachment theory is all about. I'm
also not sure that I like the term prototype. It can be taken to imply that
we expect a persistence of the same behavioral patterns, and that's clearly
nonsense: a securely attached baby will cry when mother leaves him alone
in the Strange Situation, but we don't necessarily expect him to do so when
he is a preschooler, let alone a teenager!
RM.-But what if we take it in another sense-as perhaps setting a
pathway for later relationships or predicting what they are likely to be?
MDSA.-In that sense, yes. But I think we should limit it to intimate
relationships. We do have some evidence that securely attached youngsters
tend to interact more easily with other children and with adults than in-
securely attached children, but such differences in social behavior that
doesn't involve close ties can come about for a variety of reasons. The dif-
ferences may well be related to differences in how sensitive a mother is in
introducing her baby to unfamiliar people or to how secure she makes the
child feel in exploring his environment, but I don't think that they are in
any way a necessary consequence of differences in the mother-child attach-
ment bond. Work on continuities in the structure of attachment bonds,
on figuring out the "rules" by which transformations to qualities of later
relationships come about, should focus on relationships that are close-
those in which the other can be assumed to serve as some form of an
attachment figure.
RM.-How about within the period of infancy? Suppose a baby
attached to one figure, and another caregiver is then added to his life
you think that the quality of the second relationship would be much in
enced by the experience of the original caregiver?
MDSA.-I think it would certainly be influenced at its beginning b
cause the child's expectations of a caregiver will have been shaped by
interactions with the first figure. But, if the new relationship remains co
tinuous over a long period of time, I don't think this would rema
lasting effect on the nature of the attachment bond formed with the
figure.
RM.-So you think that, to the extent that the child's interactions with
the new figure are different, the baby can develop a working model of

18

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

the attachment relationship that differs from the one he had constructed
before?

MDSA.-I keep thinking here of some Adult Attachment Interview

[AAI] transcripts where it becomes clear that the child's relationship with
the parents was essentially insecure but that a secure relationship with some
other important figure-a grandparent, a teacher, a coach, someone who
was close and understanding-had functioned to make up for the life of
insecurity with the parents. It's hard to point to such instances within in-
fancy itself, but having adults look back on their experiences makes you
realize it is possible.
RM.-It sounds like you are saying that two processes-actual interac-
tions and working models-are involved here: the baby initially comes to
interaction with the new figure with the same attachment-related expecta-
tions that he had developed with the first figure, but, to the extent that the
second relationship develops along different lines, the earlier working
model will gradually change to become something perhaps quite radically
different?

MDSA.-Yes, that's very much what I am implying.

RM.-Thinking about work that has been relevant to this issue, do you
think that the maternal deprivation literature can be taken to demonstrate
the existence of at least a predictive relation between early attachment and
later relationships?
MDSA.-One of the things it certainly demonstrates is that the attach-
ment bond is not simply God given but-as I have said before-that it has
to have an opportunity to develop. In Jimmy Robertson's observations of
tubercular children who had to spend many months in a sanatorium, the
indifference with which the child treated the parent when the mother or
father came to visit was remarkable. It was as if the child simply didn't care;
it wasn't at all important. And I think it is fair to say that this is by far the
most likely way these children would later treat other people-that what is
set under such conditions is indeed a prototype for all subsequent affective
relationships.
RM.-One of the most important findings in recent attachment re-
search has been Mary Main's demonstration that classifications obtained by
mothers on the Adult Attachment Interview are strongly related to their
infants' Strange Situation classifications. What do you think has made this
finding so influential?
MDSA.-Because it establishes a significant step in what is needed to
show that there is a meaningful developmental link between the attachment-
related experiences of the child and how that child behaves in attachment
relationships when he grows up to be an adult.

19

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
WATERS, VAUGHN, POSADA, AND KONDO-IKEMURA, EDS.

RM.-Do you think that studies comparing infants' early Strange Situa-
tion classifications with their own subsequent AAI classifications will support
this even further by showing a similar predictability?
MDSA.-I do. And, taken all together, it will be eloquent evidence of
meaningful developmental links-that just as attachment theory postulates,
development follows a logical course and is not just a matter of happen-
stance.

RM.-Let me push this even further by asking a hypothetic

What if these data had started by showing the opposite, that
continuities?

MDSA.-I think that, as developmentalists, it is safer for us to cling ...

yes, I'll stick by that word . . . cling to the belief that the processes of
development are patterned. And, even though we have an incomplete un-
derstanding of what rules underlie these patternings-what processes they
involve and how these processes involve behavior-it is more sensible to
believe that such rules exist than to believe that they don't. So I would look
very carefully at such contradictory data, try to see what might account for
the anomaly, and then try to get the study replicated using an intelligent
and impeccable methodology. And, since we're in a hypothetical mode any-
way, I'll bet you anything that the results would turn out to support presence
of logical continuities!
RM.-Have you ever been surprised by the nature of any of the conti-
nuities that you saw in your Baltimore data or that have been reported by
Main?

MDSA.-I had anticipated most of what turned out from the Baltimore
study, with one exception. What came as a real surprise was to see that
mothers who ignored their infants had babies who we thought were clearly
ignoring their mothers. This finding has now also been supported by Mary
Main's finding that infants of mothers classified on the AAI as dismissing
of attachment are classified as avoidant in the Strange Situation. But, origi-
nally, I had expected that babies whom mother ignores would demand her
attention more and more in trying to get her involved and wind up being
fussy babies. I expected to see something more openly grieving, and maybe
these babies did go briefly through some such phase. But in the end they
wound up becoming avoidant.
RM.-So they ended up looking like the deprived child who is beyond
the phase of protest?
MDSA.-Yes. Although not as dramatically as the children described
in the literature, these babies were deprived: the mother did live in the same
house, but the baby was severed from her by the closed nursery door and
by the mother's indifference to sounds that emanated from behind that
door.

20

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 NEW GROWING POINTS OF ATTACHMENT

RM.-As researchers have moved to study attachment beyond infancy

there seems to have been a tendency to focus more and more on cognitio
working models, thoughts, internal events-and less on observable intera
tions between the individual and his loved ones. How do you feel about th
trend?

MDSA.-As I think I've already stressed at various points in our conve

sation, I believe that we must continue to rely on direct observation-o
what I've called "fieldwork"-in gathering more information on what act
ally happens in different contexts and in different relationships. But movin
to also study internal attachment-related events is certainly appropriate and
necessary to get at the "rules" and processes I mentioned earlier. As lon
as this trend doesn't become an "either/or" thing-either you observe,
you probe for internal events-but remains rather a matter of balance b
tween the two, I think it will serve us well.
RM.-Well, we've ranged over many topics in this conversation, and
now the time has come to bring it to a close. Is there anything-maybe
something personal-that you may wish to add?
MDSA.-Perhaps the most extraordinary thing in my life has been
seeing so many people become interested in the concept of attachment
and dedicating themselves to developing it further. They've done
much to contribute to its growth. . . . I think of them all as my "ex-
tended family," and I send them my love, my thanks, and my very bes
wishes.

21

This content downloaded from

102.220.202.141 on Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:17:28 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms