Attachment is a connection or feeling of being emotionally close to someone. Although attachment can exist without love, its doubtful, that love can exist without attachment. So far, scientists are still working on being able to measure love directly, however we are able to examine the behavioral and biological reactions associated with attachment. Two psychologists have had the most impact on this field: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, who chose to examine attachment from an ethological perspective.

Ethology refers to the study of animal species, and ethologists believe in the evolutionary continuity across species. Mary Ainsworth, influenced by her work with John Bowlby, took an ethological approach to studying human attachment and concentrated on the influences of evolution on human behavior. She took the approach that maternal instinct is a natural, inborn phemonenon, and set out research it.

Canadian-born Ainsworth believed that attachment had its roots in infancy and studied children in Europe, the US, and Africa in her quest to identify the patterns of mothering that were most supportive of a healthy attachment. A healthy attachment "allows the child the emotional security to eventually become an autononmous individual" (Goldhaber). Ainsworth and her colleagues developed an interesting methodology, referred to as the "strange situation," to observe attachment in infants. By observing mothers and infants in the strange situation, Ainsworth identified 3 different attachment styles:

*Secure



*Anxious/Ambivalent



*Avoidant