ABSTRACT
Researchers tend to use 'attachment' when describing both a child's love for its parents and adult romantic partners' mutual love. This chapter discusses Bowlby's attachment theory that was influenced by ethologists, in particular Lorenz's study of imprinting in goslings, and Harlow's studies of separated rhesus monkey infants. Infants' distress response is mirrored in adult grief reactions, especially when the deceased is a spouse. A pioneering study of individual differences in children's attachment to their mothers was conducted by Ainsworth in Uganda. Based on her Uganda study, Ainsworth used the Strange Situation Test (SST) to study attachment among one-year-olds. Hazan and Shaver were the first to apply Ainsworth's attachment styles to adult romantic relationships, finding similar distributions as with infants. The adult attachment interview (AAI) is the most commonly used measure of adult attachment to their own parents and is based on how we construe our childhood experiences. In the evolution of Homo sapiens, grief increasingly became expressed through symbolic rituals.
