Attachment styles – or attachment classifications – are among the ways by which people connect. According to attachment theory - something that was pioneered by psychologists like John Bowlby, among others – attachment styles are shown by different children as they mature depending on wide-ranging factors, such as local culture. The developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth built on the ideas of thinkers into attachment theory that had come before to come up with a classification system. In the 1960s and 1970s, she pursued ideas relating to what she called strange situation protocol and noted that – generally speaking – there were four kinds of responses that growing children showed with their attachment to their parents and others. Her work focused on younger children and their interactions with their primary caregiver, usually - although not exclusively – their mother.
