A Secure Base from Which to Explore Close Relationships

TLDR

Attachment theory functions as a secure‑base framework that integrates affect, cognition, and behavior across ages and cultures, and empirical work has revealed key insights into infant‑caregiver and adult relationships, the role of early experience, and the stability and change of individual differences. The study aims to preserve and extend these insights and successes by building on attachment theory’s foundational work. The authors propose to continually scrutinize the theory’s logic, update its constructs with recent empirical and theoretical advances, and rigorously test hypotheses that could necessitate major revisions. Successful completion of these tasks would greatly enhance attachment theory’s development and its integration with other disciplines.

Abstract

The theory of attachment as a secure‐base relationship integrates insights about affect, cognition, and behavior in close relationships across age and culture. Empirical successes based on this theory include important discoveries about the nature of infant–caregiver and adult–adult close relationships, the importance of early experience, and about stability and change in individual differences. The task now is to preserve these insights and successes and build on them. To accomplish this, we need to continually examine the logic and coherence of attachment theory and redress errors of emphasis and analysis. Views on attachment development, attachment representation, and attachment in family and cross‐cultural perspective need to be updated in light of empirical research and advances in developmental theory, behavioral biology, and cognitive psychology. We also need to challenge the theory by formulating and testing hypotheses which, if not confirmed, would require significant changes to the theory. If we can accomplish these tasks, prospects for important developments in attachment theory and research are greater than ever, as are the prospects for integration with other disciplines.