Confidence in protection: Arguments for a narrow definition of attachment

The origins of current attachment constructs are reviewed. Whereas J. Bowlby's (1969/1982) original theory focused on a biobehavioral safety-regulating system with the parent as the child's primary protector, current usage often encompasses much more, if not all, of the parent-child relationship. As a result, some of J. Bowlby's central ideas have not been adequately tested, and the unique contributions of the theory have been obscured. The authors argue that differentiating protection from general responsivity or good parenting has many advantages. Most important, it will enable researchers to test J. Bowlby's notion that parental protection has a singular role to play in socioemotional development and has implications for attachment assessment and interventions in clinical work with families.