ABSTRACT
As pointed out in the last chapter, Bowlby’s ethological-adaptational theory of attachment, first proposed in the late 1950s, has come to dominate the conceptualization of infant social development within developmental psychology. After heated debate (e.g., Gewirtz, 1972) shortly after the near-simultaneous publication of “Attachment and dependency” (Maccoby & Masters, 1970), and Attachment (Bowlby, 1969), therefore, even early critics of Bowlby’s formulation now appear to have accepted its validity and usefulness (e.g., Maccoby, 1980).
