Attachment was discussed as metaphor and as process. In any segment of the life span, attachment labels a complex of an individual’s response patterns controlled by cues and consequences from the appearance and behaviors of another. Any response (e.g., orienting, smiling, even crying) cued by, or differential (preference) responding to, that person can index attachment directly; disorganization patterns and/or concomitant emotion effected by interference with those cued-response systems can index attachment indirectly. Behavioral indicators of attachments of children to others are surveyed, with emphasis on crying cued by a mother’s departures, separations, or absences. These might be understood as outcomes of routine discriminated-operant conditionings effected by that mother’s responding to her infant’s crying. Such cued crying has often been an index of a baby’s attachment to its mother. In a conditioning frame, discriminated responding explains drastic diminutions of cued responses denoting attachment in an attachment figure’s absence, and their marked reoccurrence on that figure’s reappearance; and a concept of inner structure underlying attachment that endures in the absence of the attachment figure is gratuitous. Some risks in using single (or very few) attachment indices are explored.

Keywords:
Attachment, (Attachment) indicator, (Attachment) inner structure, Conditioning (social), Infancy, Separation
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© 1976 S. Karger AG, Basel
1976
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