Attachment in Adolescence E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B CAD Single Issue Child & Adolescent Development
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 252

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In recent years, the number of empirical studies examiningattachment in adolescence has grown considerably, with mostfocusing on individual difference in attachment security. Thisvolume goes a step further in extending knowledge andunderstanding. The physical, cognitive, emotional, and socialchanges that characterize adolescence invite a closer conceptuallook at attachment processes and organization during this period.The chapter authors, leading researchers in attachment inadolescence, address key topics in attachment process inadolescence. These include issues such as the normative distancingfrom parents and the growing importance of peers, the formation ofvaried attachment hierarchies, the changing nature of attachmentdynamics from issues of survival to issues of affect regulation,siblings' similarity in attachment representations, individualdifferences in social information processes in adolescence, andstability and change in attachment representations in a risksample. Together the chapters provide a compelling discussion ofintriguing issues and broaden our understanding of attachment inadolescence and the basic tenets of attachment theory at large. This is the 117th issue of the Jossey Bass quarterly reportseries New Directions for Child and AdolescentDevelopment.

Leseprobe

Contents

Chapter 1: Putting Eggs in More Than One Basket: A New Look at Developmental Processes of Attachment in Adolescence

Turning Away from Parents

Turning to Others

Forming Pair-Bonds

Convergence and Diversity in Working Models of Attachment

Individual Differences

Discussion

Chapter 2: From Safety to Affect Regulation: Attachment from the Vantage Point of Adolescence

Shifts in Perspective

Manifestations of Attachment Processes in Adolescence

The Continuing Role of Relationships

Future Directions

Final Thoughts

Chapter 3: Attachment and the Processing of Social Information in Adolescence

Theoretical Background

Empirical Studies of Links Between Attachment and the Processing of Social Information

Summary and Future Directions

Chapter 4: Adolescent Attachment Hierarchies and the Search for an Adult Pair-Bond

The Interplay of Sexual, Affiliative, and Attachment Systems

Attachment Bonds with Parents During Adolescence

Developmental Change in Adolescents’ Attachment Hierarchies

Adolescent Attachment Hierarchies: Conceptual and Measurement Issues

Reorganization of Attachment Hierarchies During Adolescence

Summary and Future Directions

Chapter 5: Representations of Attachment to Parents in Adolescent Sibling Pairs: Concordant or Discordant?

A Simple Model of Concordance in Adolescents’ Representations of Attachment to Parents

Research on Sibling Attachment Concordance

An Empirical Study of Adolescent Siblings’ Concordance in Representations

A Reexamination of a Simple Model of Sibling Concordance

Adolescents’ Concordance of Representations

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Adolescent Attachment Representations and Development in a Risk Sample

Attachment from Infancy to Adolescence

Toward a Framework for Further Research on Attachment in Diverse Adolescents

Other Titles Available in the New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development Series

New Diretions for Child & Adolescent Development

New Diretions for Child and Adolescent Development is Now Available Online at Wiley Interscience

Index

Attachment in Adolescence: Reflections and New Angles

Miri Scharf, Ofra Mayseless (eds.)

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, no. 117

Reed W. Larson, Lene Arnett Jensen, Editors-in-Chief

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Chapter 1

Putting Eggs in More Than One Basket: A New Look at Developmental Processes of Attachment in Adolescence

Miri Scharf, Ofra Mayseless

Intriguing issues pertaining to normative changes in attachment in adolescence are addressed, integrating psychoanalytical thinking, developmental and attachment theory, and research.

“In some ways we know a great deal about attachment in adolescence, yet in other respects we know disconcertingly little. . . . Attempts to assess attachment in adolescence inevitably must confront the questions of what attachment becomes and what function it serves during this stage of the lifespan” (Allen & Land, 1999, p. 331). This concluding remark of the intgrative chapter on attachment in adolescence in the Handbook of Attachment is the opening point of this chapter and volume.

In recent years the number of empirical studies examining attachment in adolescence has grown. Most of the research has focused on individual differences in attachment security. This chapter seeks to extend previous research and theorizing on attachment in adolescence by elaborating on what might be considered the normative, universal developmental processes of the behavioral system of attachment during adolescence. To this end we use the notion of developmental tasks, which have been defined as socially, psychologically, and biologically determined activities or goals that individuals are expected to accomplish at certain ages or stages of life. The content and timing of such tasks are expected to be a function of biological capabilities and socially constructed norms and expectations (Schulenberg, Bryant, & O’Malley, 2004). We discuss four developmental tasks that adolescents commonly face concerning expected changes in the structure and operation of their attachment behavioral system: changes in the way attachment is expressed, changes in the targets of attachment behaviors, changes in the composition and structure of network of attachment figures, and changes in attachment internalized models.

We follow the ideas set forth by Bowlby and later developed by Ainsworth and adopt the ethological and evolutionary perspectives regarding the primacy, universality, and biological basis of attachment. We also build on a large group of researchers and scholars who have suggested various ideas and models. We further rely on two additional bodies of research: the research literature on developmental changes in adolescence and psychoanalytically oriented conceptualizations and observations. Our analysis is not intended to be a state-of-the-art review but as a somewhat speculative, and we hope challenging proposal that raises new research questions and opens up fruitful arenas for research. We address intriguing issues pertaining to normative changes in attachment in adolescence:

1. Turning away from parents. How can we explain the seemingly universal tendency of adolescents (even those who enjoy secure relationships with their parents) to distance themselves from their parents, and even deliberately refrain from turning to them in times of distress?

2. Turning to others (not parents). Why do we see strong investment in relations with peers that seem to acquire partial properties of attachment relationships? Are these really attachment relationships? How can we explain other emotional and social investments characteristic of this period, in the self and in distant others?

3. Forming pair-bonds. Where does all this lead? Is the end point of this ontogenetic developmental trajectory the creation of an attachment pair-bond with a sexual mate that assumes primacy in the attachment hierarchy?

4. Convergence and diversity in working models of attachment. How can we explain the convergence of one overarching style or state of mind coexisting with many different, alternative and competing submodels?

5. Individual differences. How do adolescents with different attachment models navigate the developmental tasks of attachment in adolescence?

Turning Away from Parents

There are clear indications in the developmental literature that in adolescence, the reliance on parents as exclusive attachment figures decreases (Allen & Land, 1999). Adolescents spend less time with parents and family and more time with peers (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996; Youniss & Smollar, 1989). There is a decline in shared activities and in the extent of physical affection between adolescents and parents (Conger & Ge, 1999; Salt, 1991) and an increased need for privacy (Josselson, 1980; Steinberg & Silk, 2002).

Furthermore, bickering and disagreements over everyday issues characterize parent-adolescent relationships, particularly during early adolescence (Collins & Laursen, 2004). Although conflicts normally provide adolescents with arenas for improving negotiation skills, conflicts with parents during adolescence are generally resolved through disengagement or giving in to parents. Conflict frequency peaks in early adolescence, while conflict intensity increases from early to middle adolescence (Collins & Steinberg, 2006).

Other indications of this distancing between adolescents and parents were found in studies that specifically examined attachment processes. For example, Ammaniti, van IJzendoorn, Speranza, and Tambelli (2000) followed participants from ages ten to fourteen using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). With age, the adolescents increased their tendencies of derogation of parents and lack of recall, and they perceived their parents as more rejecting. Similarly, in Scharf (2001) and in Scharf, Mayseless, and Kivenson-Baron (2004), many of the adolescents categorized as autonomous in the AAI were characterized by restriction in expression of attachment sentiments even when talking coherently about their relationships.

In line with this tendency of distancing, Hazan, Hutt, Sturgeon, and Bricker (1991), who asked children and adolescents to name people they would choose for different attachment functions, found that at age seventeen, 75 percent preferred peers to parents in the functions of proximity seeking and separation protest. Even in the function of secure base, parents were only somewhat favored over peers (55 percent versus 45 percent).

How do we account for these processes? According to psychoanalytical thinking (Freud, 1958), the physical changes of puberty play a central role in triggering parent-adolescent distancing. The reawakening of oedipal emotions and sexual drives is expressed in internal conflicts between the id and the superego, and externally in bickering and distancing between adolescents and their parents. It has been argued that emotional detachment from parents is needed to allow investment in extrafamilial relationships.

From a sociobiological viewpoint (Steinberg, 1990), bickering between parents and adolescents has been interpreted as ensuring that adolescents will spend time away from their families. This behavior serves to prevent incest and guarantee investment in relationships with nonkin. Such distancing between youngsters and parents is almost universally observed in nonhuman primates, and it serves to minimize inbreeding and enhance reproductive fitness. This need is exacerbated by psychosocial historical changes. Over the past century, the amount of time that physically mature youngsters and their parents live in close contact has increased, thus threatening the genetic integrity of the species and enhancing the need to actively use various means to distance from parents (Steinberg, 1987).

The distancing and the weakening of emotional investment in parents may serve yet another evolutionary purpose: promoting self-reliance and individuation. Enduring dependency on parents might jeopardize youngsters in the long run. To increase survival fitness, the young need to be self-reliant and fend for themselves. Adolescents should be prepared to function independently to ensure their survival should their parents not be around, a likely occurrence. These processes refer to psychological and instrumental separation from the actual parent, expressed in the need to obtain and manifest to oneself and to others that one has the capacity to solve problems and face challenging and stressful situations by oneself and survive. This demand is prominent in many rites of passage in various cultures (Ford & Beach, 1951).

The processes of establishing self-reliance involve a less overt part too: individuation from the introjected parent of infancy (Josselson, 1980). Josselson (1980, p. 193) provides a compelling description:

In large part, the early adolescent attempts to feel separate and distinct from his parents by finding ways of irritating them. This is a way of flexing the will, of proving to oneself that one is taken seriously as a separate person. . . . In order to deal more effectively with the introjects, the adolescent may project them back into the reality parents and, for example, fly into a rage when his mother asks, where are you going? For a moment the reality mother is experienced as controlling, over powerful mother of early childhood. This interaction, although it takes place in reality, has its meaning vis-à-vis the internal world.

The actual separation and the disengagement from internalized models reflect the individuation process (Blos, 1962). In the words of Blos (1967, p. 168), “Individuation implies that the growing person takes increasing responsibility for what he does and what he is, rather than depositing this responsibility on the shoulders of those under whose influence and tutelage he has grown up.”

Frequently adolescents were described as striving for such autonomy and self-reliance, while parents were described as having difficulties in letting go and trying to preserve the dependencies of their offspring (Stierlin, 1981). From the perspective of attachment theory, there is no reason to assume that the developmental tasks of parents and adolescents are incompatible. On the contrary, from a parental perspective, there is an evolutionary advantage for raising an autonomous offspring who can function and survive on his or her own (Youniss & Smollar 1989). Only in cases where relationships are entangled and insecure would we expect considerable difficulties.

The processes of distancing and weakening of emotional investment and dependency on parents are reminiscent of the process described in psychoanalytical writings as decathexis (Rycroft, 1995). Cathexis represents the binding of emotional feeling and significance to an idea or a person. Decathexis refers to unbinding of interest, attention, emotional involvement, or energy (libido) from one person or issue so that it can be reinvested in oneself or in another person or area. We suggest that a process reminiscent of decathexis occurs in adolescence and can be construed as a developmental task. This process involves reducing emotional investment in parents and refocusing and redirecting some of this investment to relationships with peers or nonfamily members.

Interestingly these processes of individuation and distancing seem to be accompanied by connectedness with parents (Youniss & Smollar, 1989; Blos, 1967). Although adolescents deidealize their parents and at times avoid their parents, particularly when they are stressed (Allen & Land, 1999), this temporary distancing does not imply cessation of attachment to parents (Ainsworth, 1989). In general most adolescents enjoy warm and close relationships with their parents, need their validation and respect, consult with them, and turn to them when distressed (Steinberg, 1990), and most adults continue to have meaningful and close relationships with their parents (Zarit & Eggebeen, 2002).

Thus, adolescents appear to invest emotionally less in their relationships with parents, so that these relationships “penetrate fewer aspects of their lives than they did before” (Ainsworth, 1989, p. 36). They further appear to redefine the quality of the relationship with their parents as more equal and mutual, but they do not relinquish their parents as attachment figures. Unlike most primates, which leave their parents for good following puberty (Fraley, Brumbaugh, & Marks, 2005) and thus can and should disengage completely from their parents, this is not the normative trajectory of attachment relationships for humans. After adolescents succeed in decreasing emotional investment in parents, succeed in forming relationships outside the family of origin, and prove to themselves that they can manage and function independently, they seem willing and able to rely on their parents once more. As a result, adolescence does not involve permanently severing ties with parents, but rather decreasing their importance and intensity. The extent to which this importance and intensity decrease, as well as the extent to which late adolescents or young adults go back to relying on their parents, is quite varied. It depends on individual differences but is also considerably influenced by the cultural, ecological, and historical context (Belsky, 1999; Scharf & Mayseless, 2004).

Turning to Others

The literature on relationships with peers in adolescence underscores their importance and unique role. Empirical research suggests that during adolescence, perception of parents as the primary sources of support declines, and perceived support from friends increases (Hazan & Zeifman, 1994; Collins & Steinberg, 2006). Furthermore, friends are perceived as providing similar (Scholte, Van Lieshout, & Van Aken, 2001) or even greater support than parents do (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992). At least some adolescent friendships are characterized by loyalty, intimacy, and disclosure; hence, they evince some of the characteristics of attachment relationships (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992).

In adolescence, peers play a much larger role in providing felt security in times of need and in helping to regulate distress in alarming and fear-inducing situations. Furthermore, proximity seeking and separation distress, which help maintain the availability and exclusivity of the specific relationship with a preferred peer, are observed. In addition, adolescents feel more secure and confident to explore the world, in particular the interpersonal world of sexual relationships in the company and proximity of a good friend.

Yet the commitment and strong emotional investment that include a sense of being able to trust the other forever and for “real” survival issues, which characterize most relationships with parents, are in most cases lacking in relationships with peers. There is substantial instability in friendships during adolescence (Hardy, Bukowski, & Sippola, 2002). Moreover, the belief that most adolescents have a special and exclusive close friendship in which attachment qualities are common is not necessarily true and should be examined more systematically. Probably most adolescents have a preferred peer; however, these relationships are not always mutual and not necessarily intensive in nature (Brown & Klute, 2003).

Consistent with these findings, Ainsworth (1989) argued that some friendships have an attachment component and some, but not all, constitute enduring affectional bonds. However, she suggests that whereas close friends may drift apart as their interests change and their friendship becomes less satisfying, bonds with kin tend to be more persistent, even if more ambivalent. The explanation offered is rooted in evolution and notions of the importance of gene survival (Ainsworth, 1989). Whereas stable relationships with kin serve a gene survival function, those with friends do not. Together the lack of long-term commitment in most friendships, as well as their negotiable and transitory nature, and the lack of mourning reactions to termination of most friendships, raise doubts about the extent to which most friendships are real attachment bonds.

What is the meaning and significance of these processes in terms of normative and ontogenetic development of attachment in adolescence? First, investing emotionally in friendships and relying on peers’ support allows the adolescent to distance and lessen investment in relationships with parents and find another interpersonal avenue in which to monitor and regulate his or her distress feelings.

Second, experiencing some attachment functions in relationships with peers paves the way to learning more mutual and egalitarian attachment relationships in which both parties provide and receive care and protection. Reciprocal relationships are essential for mating and survival, and they promote the development of adult-like attachment relationships (Allen & Land, 1999), as well as caregiving capacities. The relationships with peers enable practicing and scaffolding and lay the foundation for developing future mature romantic relationships. Thus, relationships with peers may be seen as the training ground for the formation of egalitarian attachment relationships, which cannot in principle be learned within the hierarchical attachment relationships with parents.

Third, the incorporation into one’s attachment network of new and often diverse figures with whom adolescents practice attachment behaviors and sentiments enables much higher flexibility in times of stress. Adults in the making who need more autonomy and space might find it wiser to distribute the emotional investment across several figures. Instead of a moderately centralized investment that characterizes the attachment relationship and attachment network in infancy and childhood, adolescents spread their now-freed emotional investments in relationships among several figures. In such diversification, the availability of one figure is less important if other figures are around. Furthermore, adolescents might not yet be mature enough to make a final choice of a full-fledged attachment figure with long-term commitment. Therefore, in such an unstable context, it is better to decentralize emotional investments.

This diversification takes several interesting forms, all discussed (albeit not in an attachment context) in the developmental research on adolescence. For example, the tendency to diversify and decentralize emotional investments might explain adolescents’ affiliation with clique members (Brown, 2004) and the importance of friends for the felt security of the adolescent. Furthermore, adolescents might sometimes develop secondary or supplementary attachments to mentors, instructors, and other less authoritative adult figures. These relationships may differ from primary attachments in their lower levels of commitment, yet they may serve several attachment functions, in particular, assistance in regulating negative emotions and the provision of a secure base from which to explore (Ainsworth, 1989).

Even distant or symbolic relationships with idols may serve some of the functions of diversification of emotional investment. The deidealization of parents paves the way for idealization of such figures (Giles & Maltby, 2004). In these actual or symbolic relationships, adolescents are able to learn through emulating new and diverse models of being and succeeding in life. Highlighting the attachment aspect in such symbolic relationships, scholars have suggested that strong “relationships” with celebrities might develop during times of stress or for individuals with less positive peer relationships (Giles & Maltby, 2004). Specifically, when adolescents do not want to, or cannot, rely on parents, or when reliance on peers is partly compromised, turning to idols even in a symbolic way may serve the regulation of self-worth and emotional distress. The transitory role of such emotional investments is nicely illustrated in the words of Blos (1967, pp. 166–167): “It should not surprise us that the bedroom walls, plastered with the collective idols, become bare as soon as object libido is engaged in genuine relationships. Then, the pictorial flock of transient gods and goddesses is rendered dispensable almost overnight.”

Another observed propensity related to the decathexis process and diversification in the service of higher self-sufficiency is adolescents’ heightened investment in the self, which is expressed in intensive self-absorption. As Blos (1967, p. 173) pointed out, “We observe in adolescence that object libido—in various degrees, to be sure—is withdrawn from outer and inner objects and is converted into narcissistic libido by being deflected onto the self. This shift from object to self results in the proverbial self-centeredness and self absorption of the adolescent who fancies himself to be independent from the love and hate objects of his childhood.” This investment in the self might be expressed in the phenomenon of the imaginary audience, adolescents’ tendency to see themselves at the center of others’ attention, and in the personal fable phenomenon: adolescents’ belief in their uniqueness, invulnerability, and omnipotence. These experiences too facilitate the individuation process in that they allow the decrease in emotional investment in parents (Lapsley, 1993). Belief in the imaginary audience makes possible continuing connectedness, while the personal fable facilitates the strivings for increased uniqueness and separateness.

In sum, the weakening of investment in parents does not normatively lead to investment in peers as full-blown attachment figures. Rather it appears to lead to a diversification of emotional investment to various sources: the self as source of security, relationships with friends with some attachment properties, actual or symbolic relationships with nonparental adults such as a coach or an idol, and relationships with romantic partners. These processes are construed here as developmental tasks of adolescence with regard to the attachment system.

Forming Pair-Bonds

From research conducted mostly in Western and industrialized cultures (Collins & Steinberg, 2006), it is quite clear that in adolescence, relationships with romantic partners change considerably with age in terms of frequency, importance, and quality. For example, in a representative sample in the United States, about 25 percent of twelve year olds reported having had a “special romantic relationship” in the previous eighteen months; these numbers increased to about 50 percent in fifteen year olds and to 70 percent by age eighteen (Carver, Joyner, & Udry, 2003). By age seventeen to eighteen, 60 percent reported being in a relationship that persisted eleven months or more. Thus, stable romantic relationships become prevalent only in late adolescence.

Furthermore, the evidence so far indicates that early adolescents perceive their romantic relations in an idealized and stereotypical way, tend to choose partners mostly following expectations of their social networks and in the service of status attainment, and emphasize superficial features of potential partners such as fashionable clothes (Zani, 1993). Thus, needs for status attainment, sexual experimentation, and recreation reflecting the affiliative and sexual and reproduction behavioral systems are the most salient in romantic relationships in early adolescence (Furman & Wehner, 1997; Shulman & Scharf, 2000). During late adolescence and early adulthood, the attachment and caregiving systems become more prominent in romantic relationships. Older adolescents tend to choose romantic partners based on intimacy and compatibility (Zani, 1993), and romantic relationships begin to fulfill needs for support and caregiving (Furman & Wehner 1997; Scharf & Mayseless, 2001).

Ainsworth (1989) argued that “the hormonal, neurophysiological, and cognitive changes lead the young person to begin a search for a partnership with an age peer, usually of the opposite sex—a relationship in which the reproductive and caregiving systems, as well as the attachment system, are involved” (p. 710). In line with this depiction, attachment researchers have argued that adolescence and young adulthood involve a transfer of attachment functions from parents to peers, and eventually to a romantic partner. Some scholars (Hazan & Zeifman, 1994) have suggested a gradual transfer that starts with changes in the figures to whom proximity maintenance and separation distress are directed, continues with changes in the safe haven function (to whom do individuals turn when they are distressed), and is finalized with changes in the secure base function (the person whose availability allows individuals to feel bolder to explore the world). This transfer is mostly to peers, though other adult figures may also be involved.

In the previous section we suggested that although reorienting emotional investment toward friends serves attachment functions, relationships with them normatively do not replace parents and in most cases do not become full-fledged committed attachment bonds. These relationships might serve as a transitory stage in the process of transfer of attachment and emotional investment from parents to a romantic partner. According to this view, the end point of the developmental trajectory of the attachment behavioral system is the creation of a full-fledged committed attachment pair-bond with a sexual mate who replaces the primary caregivers, mostly parents, at the head of the attachment hierarchy.

What is the current evidence regarding the place of romantic relationships as attachment bonds in adolescence? Do they indeed function as attachment relationships, or at least acquire attachment functions? And do they normatively replace parents as primary attachment figures?

The evidence so far seems to suggest that this trajectory is apparent in some individuals and in some cultures but is not universal; in particular, it is far less universal than the attachment to a caregiver in infancy that characterizes primates and even mammals. Although a discussion of this perspective would direct us to consider attachment processes in adulthood, knowing where the developmental trajectory leads might prove highly valuable in understanding attachment processes in adolescence.

Bowlby (1973) referred to the attachment behavioral system as biologically prewired and evolutionarily chosen, based on ethological observations that reflected the universality of attachment behaviors in most mammals, and in particular in primates and the human species. Furthermore, his suggestion that the quite helpless offspring of primates cannot survive on their own without the protection of an older, wiser, and stronger ally was so compelling that the universality postulation was clearly invoked. Thus, the formation of the attachment bond was accepted as evolutionarily chosen and necessary for survival in infancy. However, the necessity of attachment relationships to survival in older children and still more in adulthood is not as clear. In fact, with age, the importance and centrality of attachment in one’s life diminish, though this function remains to receive protection and get help with emotional and behavioral regulation during distress.

The literature on close relationships (Diamond & Hicks, 2004) documents that people in close relationships, particularly those who enjoy a unique close relationship, probably an attachment one, live longer and enjoy better well-being. Thus, the protective function of a close relationship, especially an attachment relationship, remains operative even in adolescence and adulthood. However, its essentiality for survival is much reduced compared with infancy and early childhood. Adolescents and adults are much better at protecting themselves and mobilizing other sources besides their attachment figures to receive protection. In fact, their survival is largely not dependent on their attachment figures, so we would argue that the natural selection processes that promoted the continuing operation of this behavioral system in adulthood are much elastic and less restrictive.

Accordingly it has been observed (Fraley et al., 2005) that whereas attachment processes in infancy and early childhood (before puberty) are fairly universal among primates and humans, the formation of a committed, moderately stable sexual pair-bond is not. Very few mammals and primates form such pair-bonds, and in fact the formation of committed, stable sexual pair-bonds is the exception, not the rule, in primates. Even in the human species, it is not clear whether committed pair-bonds are the rule. Examination of various cultures and subcultures in the present as well as throughout recorded history depicts a variable set of social bondings in which stable pair-bonds are but one arrangement. For example, ethnographic reports of contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes demonstrate that in such tribes, though pair-bonds are formed by most men and women, they are not universal. Pair-bonds do not seem to be stable, and pair-bonding may be mostly described as a serial monogamy. The stable constellation of bonding in the social group is with age-mates who grew up together (Caporael, 2001) or kin from the larger family, including parents and siblings. Other constellations in which attachment bonds seem to operate in adulthood may include a gender division in which men bond with other men, mostly kin, and women with other women, again mostly kin.

It has been suggested (Hazan, Gur-Yaish, & Campa, 2004) that the human species, unlike other primates, has evolved uniquely to develop attachment pair-bonds to promote paternal investment in the offspring, necessary because of the longer duration of the infant’s dependency on the mother. However, recent evolutionary analyses (Fraley et al., 2005) have demonstrated that paternal involvement is much more prevalent, and probably started far earlier in evolutionary history than pair-bonding. If anything, paternal investment led in some cultures to pair-bonding rather than the reverse.

In line with these observations, examination of adults’ networks of attachment relationships (Doherty & Feeney, 2004; Trinke & Bartholomew, 1997) revealed that these tend to include several figures (the mean seems to revolve around five) and that although romantic partners are central, there are other figures that are perceived as primary, such as parents, peers, or siblings. In particular, for most participants, parents were still part of the attachment network, often occupying a central position.