Attachment Theory, Prosocial Behavior, and Child Therapy
This paper reviews two scholarly articles examining how attachment theory relates to child development, prosocial behavior, and psychotherapy. The first article, by Gross, Stern, Brett, et al. (2015), presents a literature-based analysis of how secure versus insecure attachment styles influence prosocial behaviors such as comforting, sharing, and helping across developmental stages. The second article, by Bosmans (2016), explores how attachment theory can be integrated into cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to better address maladaptive behaviors in children and adolescents. Together, the two articles reveal both the promise and the current limitations of attachment-informed research and clinical practice, and point toward directions for future empirical investigation.
- Introduction to Attachment Theory and Prosocial Behavior: Overview of attachment theory and its relational basis
- Article One: Attachment Style and Prosocial Behavior in Children: Secure attachment linked to prosocial cognition and behavior
- Developmental Stages and Types of Prosocial Behavior: Literature review by developmental stage and behavior type
- Article Two: Integrating Attachment Theory with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: CBT gaps addressed through attachment theory framework
- Attachment, Insecurity, and Therapeutic Implications: Insecure attachment patterns and evidence-based interventions
- Conclusion and Directions for Future Research: Calls for expanded empirical research on attachment interventions
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper clearly frames its purpose upfront, introducing both source articles and signaling how each contributes to a unified argument about attachment theory's applied value.
- It maintains a consistent analytical lens — comparing secure versus insecure attachment across both articles — which gives the review coherence despite covering two distinct topics (prosocial behavior and CBT).
- The paper acknowledges the limitations of both studies honestly, noting inconclusive findings and gaps in the literature rather than overstating the evidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates effective comparative literature synthesis. Rather than summarizing each article in isolation, the writer draws connections between Gross et al.'s findings on prosocial behavior and Bosmans's therapeutic applications, showing how both texts build on attachment theory's core principles. This cross-article integration elevates the review beyond mere summary.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a shared theoretical introduction covering attachment theory broadly. It then dedicates separate sections to each article, moving from theoretical claims to empirical evidence to clinical application. The review of Gross et al. is organized first by developmental stage, then by type of prosocial behavior. The Bosmans review addresses CBT efficacy, attachment-based moderators, and therapeutic implications. A brief conclusion ties both articles together and calls for future research.
Introduction to Attachment Theory and Prosocial Behavior
Attachment theory is central to child development and has been shown to be "biologically-based" (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al., 2015, p. 2). Children can develop secure, insecure, or disorganized styles of attachment, based largely on parental responses to their emotional needs in times of stress or perceived threat. Attachment theory holds that attachment is relational — that is, attachment style is shaped both by the child's individual responses to stress and by how parents respond to the child's need for comfort when feeling threatened.
Since attachment theory was first proposed in the late 1960s, it has evolved to encompass a wide range of research on different causes, effects, and interventions. Recent research has focused on how different attachment styles impact prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, and caring. In "The Multifaceted Nature of Prosocial Behavior in Children," Gross, Stern, Brett, et al. (2015) show how secure attachment styles are linked to prosocial behavior, while also identifying important moderating factors including gender, context, and general temperament. In "Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Children and Adolescents," Bosmans (2016) demonstrates how attachment theory can be integrated with cognitive-behavioral therapy to provide a more robust and evidence-based treatment intervention for various presenting psychosocial problems.
Article One: Attachment Style and Prosocial Behavior in Children
Gross, Stern, Brett, et al. (2015) apply attachment theory to the development of prosocial behavior — voluntary acts that benefit social relationships, much like altruistic behavior. Understanding how to stimulate prosocial behavior is therefore an important area of research. Prosocial behaviors include voluntary acts of kindness such as actively helping others or exhibiting empathy. While it seems intuitive that parenting styles and parent-child relationships would strongly influence the emergence of prosocial behaviors, it is important to substantiate such intuitions with grounded theory and empirical evidence.
In the Gross et al. (2015) study, the researchers focus on theory development rather than experimental or empirical methodology. The authors first outline the broader literature on attachment theory and then show how attachment theory explains the development of cognitive schemas about social situations — suggesting that attachment theory may be closely connected with social learning. According to their review, when children learn that their distress is met with conscientious caregiving, they generally respond better to stressful social situations and behave prosocially even when experiencing fear or rejection. In other words, secure attachment styles lead to prosocial cognition, affect, and behavior.
The converse is equally supported: insecure attachment is linked to insecurity in social situations. Children who learn that caregivers do not provide support during times of stress will "expect peers to dislike or reject them," or make "hostile attributions about peers' behavior" (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al., 2015, p. 2). Research also shows that secure attachment style is correlated with stronger emotion regulation compared to insecure attachment, as securely attached individuals are better able to focus on the needs of others rather than on internalized insecurity. Securely attached children also demonstrate improved ability to voluntarily control their emotions and behaviors under stress. Notably, when insecurely attached children do behave prosocially, they tend to do so for different — and less altruistic — reasons, such as eagerness to please or a desire to avoid confrontation (Gross, Stern, Brett, et al., 2015).
Article Two: Integrating Attachment Theory with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
"Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Children and Adolescents" is a qualitative review of the literature on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for children with behavioral and affective disorders, with a focus on studies that include attachment styles as variables. While CBT has generally proven effective in treatment, Bosmans (2016) identifies gaps in the literature and suggests that the field "might benefit from a new conceptualization and expansion of treatment goals," using attachment theory as a framework (p. 310). Because parent-child attachments impact cognitive and affective development, they naturally affect a child's psychological and social functioning more broadly. The Bosmans (2016) research therefore carries strong implications for developing more effective and evidence-based child psychology interventions.
The author first reviews the literature on CBT for children and adolescents, as well as on parent-focused therapy. He argues that the efficacy of both approaches would be enhanced by a better understanding of attachment styles, given that attachment theory has cognitive-behavioral components affecting both child and parent. According to Bosmans (2016), CBT has generally resisted integrating attachment theory, partly due to a lack of empirical evidence for its efficacy and partly because attachment theory has been perceived as too closely tied to psychodynamic thinking. Attachment theory has also been presented in a "vague" way with poor operationalization (Bosmans, 2016, p. 3). In addition, some attachment research has implied a degree of immutability in attachment styles, which would not lend itself well to the change-oriented goals of CBT.
Bosmans (2016) counters these objections by presenting an overview of literature demonstrating why attachment theory does offer new directions for making CBT more effective, addressing root causes of maladaptive behaviors in children. This research parallels innovative therapies grounded in attachment theory — for example, Versaci (2016) shows how attachment theory underlies certain forms of drama therapy intervention. New developments in attachment theory, particularly around secure base script concepts, fit well within a cognitive-behavioral framework. Furthermore, research has addressed potential moderators and mechanisms explaining the link between attachment style and behavioral problems, with evidence clearly showing that insecure attachment is associated with poor emotional regulation and poor self-regulation more generally.
Conclusion and Directions for Future Research
As cognitive-behavioral therapy is focused on behavioral change via reframing cognitive schemas, it makes sense to explore the role of attachment style in child psychology. Research does show that especially for insecurely attached children, restoring trust in the parental figure or caregiver has positive outcomes in therapy. Both Bosmans (2016) and Gross, Stern, Brett, et al. (2015) offer suggestions for new directions in research on the efficacy of attachment theory. Attachment theory does explain at least some prosocial and/or maladaptive child behaviors, but future research is needed to clarify the mechanisms, moderators, and most effective intervention approaches.
References
Bosmans, G. (2016). Cognitive behavior therapy for children and adolescents. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 19(4), 310–328.
Gross, J. T., Stern, J. A., Brett, B. E., et al. (2015). The multifaceted nature of prosocial behavior in children. Social Development 2017, 1–18.
Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenberg, M. J., & Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2017). Pairing attachment theory and social learning theory in video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting. Current Opinion in Psychology, 15(2017), 189–194.
Shaver, P. (2017). Attachment to attachment theory. Voices.
Versaci, R. (2016). Attachment performs: Framing attachment theory within the dramatic worldview. Drama Therapy Review, 2(2), 223–237.
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