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Attachment theory originates in the work of the British psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist John Bowlby and the Canadian clinical psychologist Mary Ainsworth. Bowlby sought a scientific explanation for the affectional bonds that children form with their caregivers, as manifested by attempts to seek and maintain proximity to and comfort by their caregivers, and by negative reactions following prolonged separations and losses. He eventually formulated the core tenets of attachment by drawing from multiple scientific disciplines, including ethology, psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology (Van der Horst, 2011). Bowlby’s emphasis on the importance of early care may come across as self‐evident today. However, it was anything but an orthodox position when he formulated attachment theory, at which time the importance of children’s actual experiences with their caregivers were not sufficiently acknowledged (Bowlby, 1940, 1951, 1969/1982). Ainsworth, who collaborated closely with Bowlby, then extended his account by conducting extensive empirical observations of caregiver–child interaction, and by identifying individual differences in infants’ expectations of the availability of their caregivers (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Van Rosmalen et al., 2015, 2016).

Already in their lifetime, their work influenced various aspects of policy to do with children. One important shift to which they contributed was recognition of the negative effects of hospitalization for children when, as was common policy, their caregivers were not permitted to visit or allowed to visit only very irregularly (Bowlby et al., 1952; Van der Horst & Van der Veer, 2009). Ideas from attachment theory have also been influential for parents, teachers, child protection services and policy‐makers. Key concepts and ideas that entered into circulation included Bowlby’s emphasis on the importance of early care for socioemotional development, his concern about major separations of infants from their caregivers, and his emphasis on the value of continuity in child–caregiver relationships. Ainsworth’s ideas also gained recognition, particularly her identification of the importance of caregiver sensitivity for children’s socioemotional development. She is also known for her account of the sensitive caregiver as a “secure base” from which the child can explore the environment, and as a “safe haven” to which the child can return for comfort and protection. For instance, the “First 1000 Days” policy agenda acknowledges the developmental importance of early care, and makes explicit reference to attachment theory (House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, 2019). Further, preschool curricula often make reference to attachment theory and the importance of creating a secure base to facilitate children’s exploration and, through this, their learning.

Since the passing of Bowlby and Ainsworth in the 1990s, ideas about attachment seem to have become more, rather than less, appealing and popular. One reason may be their alignment with current concerns about the importance of early experience for brain development (Gerhardt, 2014; Wastell & White, 2017). In a 2018 survey conducted by the British government of organizations working with children in need of help and protection, attachment theory was, by a large margin, cited as the most frequently used underpinning perspective (Department for Education, UK, 2018). In social work policy and practice, Smith and colleagues (2017) have argued that attachment theory “has become the ‘master theory’ to which other ways of conceiving of childcare and of relationships more generally become subordinated” (p. 1606). In family courts, attachment theory and research is referenced in relation to children’s best interests and used to inform decision‐making (Keddell, 2017).

Yet the account of attachment theory and research that is available in much clinical and child welfare practice, as well as in popular and policy contexts, can sometimes be distorted or hazy (Furnivall et al., 2012, Reijman et al. 2018; Morison et al., 2020). For instance, popular accounts of attachment theory often miss Bowlby’s (1988) qualifications of his earlier emphasis on the importance of early care: in his later work he placed emphasis on the potential for both continuity and change in psychological development. The popular account of attachment theory likewise misses that Ainsworth was using a technical definition of “sensitivity.”. She meant the ability of a caregiver to perceive and to interpret accurately the signals and communications implicit in a child’s behavior, and given this understanding, to respond to them appropriately and promptly. This meaning is not implied by uses of the word “sensitive” in ordinary language, which is typically assumed to mean warm and caring. Popular accounts of attachment theory also tend to overestimate the amount of information that can be gained from observations of individual persons’ attachment quality (e.g. Granqvist et al., 2017). It has recently been highlighted that popular accounts of attachment theory sometimes influence family court decision‐making, resulting in a large number of attachment scholars writing a consensus statement with recommendations for how to use attachment theory and research in decision‐making concerning child protection and child custody (Forslund et al., 2021).

Already in 1968, Ainsworth wrote to Bowlby with concern: “attachment has become a bandwagon” – a popular and oversimplified cause. She specifically worried that a breakdown of communication was occurring between active attachment researchers and their publics, causing both excessive enthusiasm for the paradigm in some quarters and unfair rejections in others. Furthermore, appeals to attachment by practitioners often neglected what she considered essential about the paradigm, for instance by focusing on laboratory‐based classifications of infants’ attachment quality rather than on their perception of the caregiver’s availability based on their actual experiences of care (see also Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991).

What factors contributed to this bandwagon? One was that Bowlby was a great popularizer. He used television, radio, magazines and books published by the popular press to get his key messages out to clinicians, policy‐makers and the wider public. However, Bowlby knowingly simplified his messages in these forums, and he often kept his more subtle conclusions and qualifications for his scholarly work. Indeed, he was explicit that in his popular writings he exaggerated matters; it was a kind of marketing strategy for his more complex theoretical reflections (see, e.g. Bowlby, 1987). While this strategy created a version of attachment theory that could circulate much more easily, it was in some important regards a misleading or even distorted picture of his conclusions.

The cut‐price popular account of attachment that Bowlby set in motion was evocative, provocative, quite general and had the appearance of scientific credibility. This contributed to its flexibility, its urgency and its exceptionally wide appeal to various people concerned with family relationships and child development (Duschinsky, 2020). For instance, Bowlby’s warnings about the dangers of child–mother separations were too imprecise. Major separations are indeed potentially harmful for young children (for a discussion, see, e.g. Forslund et al.,2021). However, in failing to qualify what kinds of separations he was writing about, Bowlby conveyed the impression that even ordinary separations, including limited use of day‐care, was a risk factor for long‐term harm. By contrast Ainsworth gave no public interviews, and she never wrote a magazine or popular article. Her energies were firmly focused on establishing the scientific basis of attachment as a research paradigm. With exceptions such as Patricia Crittenden (e.g. Spieker & Crittenden, 2018), and Peter Fonagy (e.g. Fonagy & Higgitt, 2004), the next generation of attachment researchers followed Ainsworth’s approach of focusing on research and ignoring public understandings and misunderstandings of attachment. As Susan Goldberg (2000) observed, after Bowlby “many attachment researchers (myself included) have been reluctant to take on this responsibility” (p. 248). This left popular misunderstandings influenced by Bowlby’s crudest statements too frequently unchallenged.

Half a century later, important theoretical papers and empirical studies conducted by the successors of Bowlby and Ainsworth are often stuck behind paywalls and in books or encyclopaedias that are out of print or otherwise out of reach of potential readers. It is far too difficult for practitioners and publics to access attachment theory and research, and some of the books specifically targeted for practitioner audiences contain serious inaccuracies (e.g. Pearce, 2016). It is no wonder, then, that the image in wider circulation differs from the views held by attachment researchers (Duschinsky et al., 2020). Additionally, the diversity of stances within attachment research is too little visible from the outside, which can make attachment theory seem monolithic and unchanging.

In fact attachment theory and research has become both more complicated and much more diverse over time, when compared with the original formulations of Bowlby and Ainsworth. For instance, Ainsworth’s model with three patterns of attachment has been expanded to include a fourth category of attachment termed “disorganized/disoriented attachment” (Main & Solomon, 1986), as well as other characterizations in terms of dimensions (e.g. Fraley & Spieker 2003), additional categories (Landini et al., 2015), or scripts (Waters & Roisman, 2019). An “attachment disorder” category has also emerged within psychiatric nosology (Zeanah et al., 2016). Attachment measures have also been developed for children of various ages, for adolescents, and for adults, enabling research on attachment across the life span. Research on caregiver behavior thought important for children’s attachment quality has also expanded to include various behaviors beyond sensitivity, including attention to the role of alarming caregiver behaviors (see Madigan et al. 2006). There has also been growing concern with the relationship between child attachment and child temperament (e.g. Belsky & Rovine, 1987). Attachment theory and research have also expanded from an initial focus on one “primary caregiver”, to an interest in children’s often multiple attachment relationships and their respective importance for child development (see Dagan & Sagi‐Schwartz 2018). The initial emphasis on child–caregiver relationships has also expanded to include attachment relationships between romantic partners, and a variety of attachment‐based interventions have been developed (see Mikulincer & Shaver 2018).

Over the decades the volume of empirical research has grown too large to be easily captured, in part due to the various developments and extensions of the theory, as well as the accumulation of empirical studies (Verhage et al., 2020). The Handbook of Attachment, edited by Jude Cassidy and Phil Shaver (2016), is a landmark attempt at integrating the current status of attachment theory and research, but the book stands at over a thousand pages, illustrating the challenge. Jeremy Holmes’ and Arietta Slade’s (2013) Attachment Theory also provides quite a comprehensive picture, but in the form of six edited volumes, it comes at a cost that renders it out of reach except for those with access to university libraries. Robbie Duschinsky’s (2020) Cornerstones of Attachment (free to download from the Oxford University Press website) characterizes some of the key elements of attachment theory and research through a study of five nodal research groups, but is by no means a comprehensive survey.

For a variety of reasons then, over time the positions of classic and contemporary attachment researchers in their diversity and depth seem to have become lost in the public reception of the paradigm. Whilst there is much consensus, there are also relevant differences between researchers on several grounds, including but not limited to the following:

 What is attachment and how it should be conceptualized?

 How shall attachment be measured and are assessments valid across cultures?

 How does a child develop attachment relationships with various caregivers?

 What caregiver behaviors are important for child attachment?

 Are ideas about temperament compatible with attachment theory?

 To what extent do attachment experiences contribute to later development?

 What is the standing of the attachment disorder diagnosis?

 What are the implications of attachment theory and research for interventions?

Our intention with this book has been twofold. First, we wanted to provide a book that is sufficiently short and accessible, but which nonetheless gives an interesting introduction to the main tenets of attachment theory and its developments and diversity. Second, we wanted to increase the accessibility of some important but relatively inaccessible texts in attachment theory and research. We hope that this Reader offers some access to the richness and excitement of attachment theory and research, as well as to its diversity and current limitations. There is of course no way that a single volume can capture all that it should. Our selections have ultimately been oriented by three principles:

1 The first and most important principle has been to select important papers “off the beaten track.” This includes papers never published in English, that are out of print or that are otherwise especially difficult to find. We have not included works already reprinted in other anthologies, or readily available for free online.

2 A second principle has been to select papers that offer something surprising that runs against common assumptions about attachment theory and research.

3 A third principle has been that in each chapter there should be something that will surprise or intrigue even a specialist.

Attachment Theory & Research: A Reader is intended as both a reference point and as an invitation to further exploration, with potential relevance for diverse readers including students, clinicians and other professionals, policy‐makers and other interested individuals. Access to previously inaccessible and unpublished work should also make it relevant to researchers in developmental and social psychology. The book comprises fifteen papers and includes, for instance, an unpublished paper by John Bowlby, an unknown paper by Mary Ainsworth, and an important paper by Mary Main and Erik Hesse on disorganized attachment that has previously only been published in Italian. We have placed the papers in chronological order, largely coinciding with a progression from main tenets and classic attachment theory towards later research and selected applications and extensions.

In the first paper, John Bowlby (1960) discusses the concept of “separation anxiety” and lays out some of the theoretical proposals that would take center stage in his canonical trilogy Attachment and Loss (1969/1980). He takes as his starting point the anxiety that almost all children, from a certain age, show upon separation from their caregivers. He critiques contemporary views in which attachment and separation anxiety were seen as “secondary” to a child’s concerns about being fed, or a consequence of distortions of “psychic energies.” He then draws primarily on ethology to argue that attachment and separation anxiety are important “primary” phenomena that humans share with other animals, and which are mediated by “instinctual response systems” that have been retained in evolution due to their survival value. He also elaborates on the “protest‐despair‐detachment” sequence of behavior that he and his colleagues observed in response to being separated from caregivers and cared for by unfamiliar nurses on shift duty, and describes separation anxiety as a normative and inescapable corollary of attachment. He then critically discusses psychoanalytic theories of separation anxiety contesting the idea that children may be spoilt by excessive love and gratification. He argues that fear of separations and withdrawal of love can lead to problems with hostility and anxiety.

In the second paper, John Bowlby discusses the concepts of “anxiety,” “stress,” and “homeostasis,” structured around the premise that we must consider basic biological principles in order to understand conditions that elicit anxiety and fear. He discusses both the nature of states held relatively stable by living organisms (“homeostasis”), and the nature of stable pathways along which development proceeds (“homeorhesis”), and argues that anxiety and fear are experienced when stable states are threatened by instability. Drawing from dynamic systems theory he elaborates on five types of homeostasis and homeorhesis, including three that are presumed to be older from an evolutionary perspective (physiological, morphological, ecological homeostasis) and two that he argues are more recent (representational, and person–environmental homeostasis). He then discusses the role of disturbance of representational and personal–environmental homeostasis in psychological growth as well as ill health. To this end, he discusses the concepts of “stress,” “stressors” and “trauma,” and emphasizes the importance of processes designed to restore homeostasis and homeorhesis. Finally, he elucidates similarities and differences between the concepts of “anxiety” and “fear,” and the terms “security” and “safety,” and discusses conscious and unconscious anxiety and fear. Given the longstanding interest in the link between caregiving, attachment quality, and child development, we believe that this paper is important to publish.

In the third paper, Mary Ainsworth (1984) presents the foundational ideas of attachment theory, summarizes research and discusses the future prospects of the paradigm. She discusses how the attachment system interacts with other behavioral systems, most notably the exploratory system. She then describes her own ground‐breaking research regarding development of attachment and variations in attachment quality, focusing on the role of the caregiver’s “sensitivity.” To this end, she describes her development of the now classic strange situation procedure and differences between dyads classified as “secure,” “avoidant” and “ambivalent/resistant.” She also reviews research regarding attachment quality and subsequent development, elaborating on Bowlby’s account on developmental pathways, and discusses loss of an attachment figure as a factor that may influence development. She considers the difference between healthy and unhealthy “mourning,” and elaborates on Bowlby’s notion of “incompatible models” of memory. This valuable presentation of Ainsworth’s mature position on attachment theory and methodology, published in an obscure encyclopaedia, has remained unknown and, to the best of our knowledge, never cited.

In the fourth paper, Phillip Shaver, Cindy Hazan, and Donna Bradshaw (1988) discuss attachment in relation to romantic relationships. They note that research on romantic love has traditionally been descriptive and atheoretical, and argue for an attachment‐based perspective informed by an evolutionary framework. They review a number of remarkable similarities between infant–caregiver attachment and adult romantic love, and apply Ainsworth’s patterns of attachment to adult romantic relationships, describing two of their ground‐breaking studies. Their discussion includes how self‐designated attachment type was associated with participants’ descriptions of their most important love relationship, descriptions of the self and descriptions of their attachment relationships during childhood. They then discuss limitations of their own research, emphasizing the preliminary measures of attachment constructs, and outline future research avenues. Crucially, they draw upon Bowlby’s and Ainsworth’s reasoning and suggest that romantic love relationships should entail an integration of three behavioral systems: attachment, sexuality and caregiving, and discuss the potential dynamics between these systems. Finally, they discuss grief in response to loss of a romantic attachment figure, using attachment theory to explain why loss can be so painful.

In the fifth paper, Alan Sroufe (1989), one of the leaders of the Minnesota longitudinal study of attachment and adaptation, discusses the importance of children’s early attachment experiences and relationships for the development of the self, for social behavior and for relationship functioning. He approaches the topic from an “organizational perspective” and the concept of “dyadic regulation.” Infants are seen as constantly embedded in formative relationships with their caregivers, and the self is seen as a “social creation,” with the experiences that make up infant–caregiver relationships preceding, giving rise to and organizing children’s development. He provides a detailed discussion of different stages in the development of the self and of regulation as going from regulation by the caregiver, via coordinated sequences of behavioral interaction, to increasingly independent self‐regulation. He then draws on Bowlby and describes this organization as manifested in “internal working models” of self and others that are complementary in nature and generalized to subsequent relationships. Finally, drawing on findings from the Minnesota longitudinal study, he discuss secure attachment in relation to the concept of autonomy, potency of self and the feeling of the self as worthy of care.

In the sixth paper, Mary Main and Erik Hesse (1992) discuss theory and research regarding the origins of disorganized/disoriented attachment. They discuss the predicament a child faces when the attachment system and the fear system are simultaneously activated by caregiver behavior, with children both pushed away from frightening stimuli and pulled toward their caregivers. In so doing, they describe disorganized/disoriented attachment and the approach–avoidance conflict that is thought to arise when a caregiver is associated by a child with alarm. They then discuss links between unresolved traumatic experiences, as measured by lapses in monitoring of reasoning and discourse upon discussing traumatic loss and abuse in their interview instrument the “Adult Attachment Interview,” and momentary "frightened” caregiving behavior, focusing on non‐maltreating caregivers. Finally, they discuss adult unresolved/disorganized states of mind, and infant disorganized/disoriented attachment, in relation to a propensity for “dissociation” and “trance‐like states.” This paper is perhaps Main and Hesse’s most detailed account of the psychological mechanisms inferred to underpin disorganized attachment and unresolved states of mind. However it has previously only been published in Italian.

In the seventh paper, Owens and colleagues (1995) present the results of an early empirical study regarding the concordance between adults’ state‐of‐mind regarding attachment to caregivers and attachment quality to romantic partners. They discuss Freud’s “prototype hypothesis,” which Bowlby partly carried forward through his notion of “monotropy,” and which suggests that early working models are to an extent generalized to subsequent relationships. Yet, they also note that Bowlby argued that internal working models are amenable to change following new experiences, and that we tend to have multiple attachment relationships, including more than one parent and romantic partners. They then pose important questions regarding how different working models, from different types of relationships, may be associated with and influence one another. They measure state‐of mind regarding caregivers using the Adult Attachment Interview, and use a similar interview‐based instrument – the Current Relationships Interview – to examine romantic attachment quality. They present and discuss their results, which challenge the prototype hypothesis, and provide a detailed discussion of important future research avenues.

In the eighth paper, Phillip Shaver (2006) discusses theory and research pertaining to the “dynamics of romantic love” and, in doing so, follows up on developments regarding their theory regarding the interplay between attachment, caregiving and sex. He critiques attempts to conceptualize romantic love primarily as affects, feelings and attitudes, and argues for the advantages of their conceptualization in terms of behavioral systems. He then addresses the challenge of how to best integrate the three systems, acknowledging that the theory may have failed to include the exploratory and affiliative systems. Also, he discusses the tendency to bestow loved ones with precious and irreplaceable qualities in relation to the caregiving system. He reviews both research examining associations between the three systems and research using priming. While many of their hypotheses have been corroborated, he argues that much is still uncertain regarding the origins of the interrelations between the systems and their dynamics, and elaborates on future research that may help resolve these issues.

In the ninth paper, Marinus van IJzendoorn and Marian Bakermans‐Kranenburg (2012) discuss attachment theory in relation to temperament theory and emphasize a recent rapprochement, with caregiving acknowledged as influencing children’s temperamental characteristics and temperament as influencing caregiving behavior. They refute an early hypothesis that variations in attachment behavior can be explained by temperamental characteristics and discuss alternative conceptualizations that focus on transactions. They give particular attention to Belsky’s differential susceptibility model, which suggests that some children have a higher constitutional susceptibility to environmental influences than other children. In contrast to the more one‐dimensional stress‐diathesis model, this susceptibility is seen as “for better or worse,” with genetically susceptible children faring worse than other children in suboptimal environments, but better than other children in enriched environments. They also apply the differential susceptibility model to caregiving, and discuss whether differential susceptibility may extend to caregiving practices.

In the tenth paper, Charles Zeanah and Mary Margaret Gleason (2015) review theory and research regarding “attachment disorders.” They describe two distinct disorders: reactive attachment disorder (RAD), in which children display absence of attachment behavior, and disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED), in which children display a lack of social reticence and show indiscriminate social behavior toward unfamiliar adults. While both disorders arise due to social neglect, they argue that their differentiation is motivated by differences in presentations, courses and correlates, and responsiveness to intervention. They also elaborate on differences between attachment disorders and patterns of attachment and discuss child vulnerability factors, since social neglect alone is not sufficient to explain the development of attachment disorders. They also discuss clinical correlates and co‐morbidity, differentiating RAD from autism spectrum disorder and DSED from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and discuss attachment disorders in relation to internalizing and externalizing problems. They also discuss the effects of deprivation on neurobiology, linking deprivation to structural and functional deviations in brain development. Finally, they discuss research on interventions, which have largely focused on adoption, and discuss different responsiveness between RAD and DSED.

In the eleventh paper, Matt Woolgar and Emma Baldock (2015) present the results of a study examining if there is a tendency to overdiagnose “attachment disorders” and “attachment problems” among adopted and looked‐after children. Using one hundred consecutive referrals to a specialist unit in the UK, they examine whether attachment disorders and problems are identified in a higher extent in community‐based referral letters than by specialists, and whether overdiagnosing of attachment disorders and attachment problems is at the expense of diagnosing more common problems such as ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). They elaborate on the potential allure of attachment disorders and attachment problems, and argue that the more common diagnoses should be considered as “first line diagnoses.” One reason for this, they argue, is that whereas there is good access to evidence‐based interventions for these more common problems, specific interventions for attachment disorders and problems are still at an early stage. Their findings not only suggest that there is a problem of overdiagnosing attachment disorders and problems, but also that these phenomena are ill understood. Based on their own findings and those of others, they then argue that the current diagnostic system for attachment problems is inadequate to meet the needs of clinicians, that there is confusion about an appropriate diagnostic framework and a lack of agreed upon standards for assessing attachment disorders.

In the twelfth paper, Ashley Groh and colleagues (2017) summarize and present the results of a recent series of meta‐analyses on the association between child–mother attachment quality and (1) social competence, (2) internalizing problems, (3) externalizing problems and (4) temperament. They also examine whether effects endure or diminish over time, and if effects vary systematically depending on factors such as type of sample, child sex and socio‐economic factors. They discuss results concerning differences between children classified as secure and insecure as well as regarding the four attachment categories, including some unexpected results regarding avoidant and resistant attachment. While the meta‐analyses present robust support for the role of attachment quality in child development, they also elaborate on a number of empirical issues in need of inquiry. For instance, they note that the effects of attachment quality are small to moderate by Cohen’s criteria. They also highlight that there is a scarcity of research on mediating mechanisms. They close by discussing potential problems with examining attachment in the strange situation in the form of four mutually exclusive categories.

In the thirteenth paper, Mary Dozier and Kristin Bernard (2017) describe their attachment‐based intervention; the “Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up.” They review theory and research on the importance of caregiver sensitivity for infants’ development of biological and behavioral regulation, and emphasize the caregiver as a crucial co‐regulator. They then describe their own ten‐session home‐visit programme the ABC, which was developed with a focus on caregivers at risk for inadequate and problematic care (e.g. abuse and neglect). They discuss how the ABC is designed to help caregivers (1) enhance nurturing behavior, (2) follow their children’s leads and (3) reduce frightening behavior, and describe the importance of frequent and positive “in the moment” comments by the parent coach. They then review research showing positive effects of the ABC on caregiving sensitivity as well as on infants’ attachment quality and self‐regulatory ability, and describe an adaptation of the ABC for caregivers with toddlers. Finally, they discuss the need for further examination of the effectiveness of the ABC when implemented in the community.

In the fourteenth paper, Fabien Bacro and colleagues present theory and research on children’s multiple attachment relationships and representations. They note that there is still a lack of consensus regarding the nature, structure and relative importance of each attachment relationship in children’s development, and emphasize that parental roles have become more egalitarian in many countries. They then compare three theoretical models regarding how attachment relationships may become organized and influence child development: the hierarchical model based on Bowlby’s notion of monotropy; the integrative model, in which different attachment relationships are thought to become integrated; and the independent model, in which different relationship models are seen as exerting independent effects on child development. In doing so, they review research examining whether children show preferences for certain caregivers, to what extent there is concordance in children’s attachment quality with their mothers and fathers, and the respective influence of attachment to mothers and fathers for child development. Based on the increased number of children exposed to parental divorce they also review research regarding how different family contexts may influence children’s attachment representations, and highlight the importance of the parental relationship post separation. Finally, they discuss research regarding placement trajectories and attachment quality in children placed in foster care, focusing on the risk for unstable placements and the need to repeatedly create new attachment relationships. They emphasize recent research by Bacro and colleagues who linked multiple placements to an increased risk for externalizing problems with disorganized attachment acting as a mediating mechanism. This chapter, which was written for the current anthology, includes research that has to date only been published in French.

In the fifteenth paper, Mary True presents theory and research on disorganized attachment and its origins, focusing on cultural differences in caregiving practices and the transferability of the strange situation procedure between cultures. She focuses particularly on her and her colleagues’ research with Dogon mothers and infants in Mali, and presents new analyses motivated by advances in theory development. She describes Main and Hesse’s theory of frightening/frightened caregiver behavior, and Lyons‐Ruth’s theory of dysfluent communication, and how her and her colleagues’ initial findings were in line with both these “relational” theories of disorganization. However, she also notes that maternal sensitivity predicted attachment security in a “well baby exam” but not in the strange situation procedure, and that she and her colleagues did not observe any avoidant infants in the strange situation. She then contrasts the “proximal” caregiving practices of the Dogon with the “distal” caregiving practices in Western countries, and raises the question of whether the Dogon infants may have experienced overstress in the strange situation due to the rarity of experiencing such separations. She then presents and discusses her new analyses regarding the relational hypothesis and the overstress hypothesis, together with a meta‐analysis examining whether the frequency of avoidant classifications is lower in Africa. The chapter was written for the current anthology.