This is marked with being loving while being responsive. This is however true only when they are able to manage but not in their response to the child's signals as pointed out by Cassidy (2000). In adults

Several adults have been shown to be exhibiting this style and they are known to be in a constant quest to be accepted by others through the gaining of acceptance of other individuals in the community.

Fearful avoidant style

This is the last type of avoidance styles It comprises of highly negative individuals.They do have:

1. High anxiety

2. High avoidance

They also feel the following:

Unworthy

Unlovable

They view people negatively and regard them as either rejecting or untrustworthy.

Due to this, they usually avoid very close relationship and try to avoid being rejected at all costs. This group is made up of individuals who have been abused and neglected as pointed out by (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991).

The durability of the attachment styles

The durability in this case refers to the state of stability of the attachment styles. This has however been a subject of too much controversy and debate. The attachment theory postulates that after repeated experiences during an individual's childhood, they do while in infancy, develop a string of knowledge structures a concept that can also be referred to as an inner working model that acts as a representative of the various several interactions that the infant had while they were with their primary care giver.

The infant then learns of the fact that whenever their primary caregivers get responsive then they have an opportunity of counting on them as well as others should need be. On the other hand, in case the primary care givers are cold, unresponsive and inconsistent, then the child would soon learn to ignore or rather neglect their role in his or her life in regards to gaining comfort.

This model has for a long time been thought of as being persistent throughout the life of an individual and can be considered to act for them as some sort of a guide as illustrated by Fraley, (2002).

In order to support this model, we bring out the fact that adults generally do tend to be more attentive to situations that bring out their experiences and to information that is in congruence with their worldly expectations. This is called the "confirmation bias"

In order to illustrate this, we look at the study that was conducted by Simpson, Rholes, & Nelligan in 1992 that portrayed that people who have avoidant working models with a general view of others as being unreliable did also vies social scenarios as being ambiguous.

A study conducted by Roisman, Collins, Sroufe, & Egeland (2005) in order to explore if an infant's style of attachment could be predictive of their adult hood indicated that:

A secure mind state in regard to one;s romantic relationship and better of (high quality) romantic relationship is usually a result of a secured attachment relationship that took place in infancy.

In yet another study by Torgersen, Grova, & Sommerstand, (2007) whose research relied on the test results of hypothesis that purported that attachment in most adults is heavily influenced by certain genetic factors. This was done through a comparison of both monozygotic as well as dizygotic twins attachment styles.

Their result is was that both the environment and the genes have a profound influence on attachment

Recent theories

Several recent theories dispute this notion. They do propose however that the durability of a certain style is a functions of the stability of an individual's environment.

This can be illustrated with a consideration of the experiences of new relationships and formation of new attachments both of which can bring about positive influence on an individual's working model.

It is worth noting that the attachment theory is very crucial in the explanation of an individual's interpersonal relationship in a lifetime. The four proposed attachments styles:

Secure

Preoccupied

Dismissing and Fearful avoidant

Are all crucial in the explanation of an individual's interpersonal relationship. It is important to note that the durability of attachment has been questioned and more research is going on this.

In the recent past attachment researchers have proven that attachment status in the initial year of life has a strong prediction of the development throughout an individual's the life. Main and Cassidy (1988) came up with a system for classifying the attachment at six years of age on the...

The study involved of 33 children and the attachment classification at six years of age was discovered to be highly predictable from an individual's infancy attachment classifications up to the mother. The continuing direct assessment of both the internal working models, Cassidy (1988) went ahead and compared the attachment classification at 6 with self-assessments. He did this while testing Bowlby's hypothesis which postulated that infant's working model of the self is usually linked to his working model (of the principal attachment figure) .
Applications to social phenomena

Attachment theory in raising children

Attachment is the link that forms between the person taking care of an infant and the infant itself from when it is between eight to nine months of age, giving the child security emotionally. Bonding starts from when a child is being given food, and goes on to participating in pseudo-dialogue and then it is followed by the child taking part in more active roles of proto dialogue, as shown by Kaye (1982), other ideas such as inter-subjectivity and scaffolding have been looked into by psychologists. As an infant continues growing, their attention towards the person taking care of them increases.

John Bowlby (1958, 1980) founder of the attachment theory was involved in extensive analysis on the emotional link between infants and adults and he had a strong belief that the early relationships greatly determined the emotional and behavioral growth of a child. An earlier study done by Bowlby in 1944 found out that children who had an unstable upbringing where more likely to become juvenile derelicts. His work is often free to criticism and has been improved on with further research. Other following research has measured different levels of security and insecurity in children from early times by use of the method known as Strange Situation Test. Other explorations have also shown different types of the difficult habits and how a child may relate with the person taking care of them actively.

Bowlby's theory was founded on ideas from ethology studies and earlier works. The psychodynamic theory as put by Sigmund Freund was very pertinent during the 50's following the Second World War when women were taking up caring for households and playing motherhood roles as men were going back to employment post war. Sigmund believed that every child ought to have a relationship with one caregiver 'monotropism' and that separating from this person would bring about the 'proximity promoting behaviors' in the attachment order. The caregiver coming would cause the behaviors of, clinging, making noise and crying to come to an end. The protected grounds of the affectionate links present between the parent and infant representation becomes part and parcel of the inner working model. These therefore become the heart and the base of all close relationship during continuation of the child's life all through to adulthood. The interference of a mother and child's relationship through lack of emotion, separation and bereavement to the bonding process.

Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation (1951, 1953) was supported by Konrad Lorenz imprinting study on the young ones of animals done in 1966. He believed that the child's caregiver should impress as a constant figure, and that lack of maternal links between mother and child could be dangerous to the child's health mentally and could cause delinquency. His opinions on long-term organizational care were that if a child was placed in a foster home before reaching two years and six months social, emotional and cognitive development may not be delayed but his other works show there has been varying types of parting in youth with serious behavioral issues. Attachment behavior as looked into by Mary Ainsworth works (1985) Ainsworth & Bell, (1974) Ainsworth et al. (1978) becomes the base for all potential connections and this develops up to two years from the time the child is born. She also agreed with Bowlby on the opinion that the process of attachment bonding occurs at the age of two years. Roughly when the infant is about 7 months old when they get to be watchful of strangers and unknown environments. This continues until the child attains two years of age. The process Ainsworth (1969) investigated to determine if a child was securely or insecurely connected was the 'strange situation paradigm'. This involved a series of short separations and reunions. The child's parent and a person unknown to the child took part in the study with a child aged one year, there were eight series in total and…