Discuss role of attachment in childhood emotional development.

Psychology Essay The role of attachment in childhood emotional development is imperative, as the bond of attachment in infants to the person who takes care of them, is sometimes said to lay the foundations for all later relationships. Until some forty years ago it was widely believed that the love for the mother was a direct consequence of the fact that she provided the means to satisfy basic biological needs-she provided food, warmth, physical protection …

…diverged markedly. The under-stimulated infants showed serious impairments in their social and emotional development. These ill effects of early isolation can be long lasting and they reinforce the importance of attachment and a loving family in childhood development. A number of studies have shown that many of these orphanage children (although by no means all) have a number of intellectual deficits, for example in language and in abstract thinking that persist into adolescence and beyond.