Lifespan. Critical evaluation of theories of attachment. Life Sciences (Essay Sample)

LIFE SPAN
(Name)
The Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The Name of the School (University)
The City and State
The Date
Introduction
The word lifecycle growth denotes to changes that are age associated in nature which occurs in a person's life from date of birth, during the baby's growth to adulthood and old age. There are six development stages in an individual lifespan, namely the embryonic stage, babyhood, teenage years, initial adulthood, intermediate age and old age respectively. In my essay, am focusing mainly on four steps of growth. These are the babyhood, teenage years, initial adulthood and the intermediate age stages of development.
1.1 Critical evaluation of theories of attachment.
John Bowlby, a psychiatrist, and psychologist of the 20th century is well known due to his research and studies on attachments related to the development theories (Kail, 2013).  The theories of attachments simply state that for an individual to critically develop, a solid physical and emotional affection is critical especially to one of the most important caregivers (Garrison, 1985). This is a modest description which is as a result of his continued study on the psychological growth of various children from different backgrounds.
Comparisons of different theories of development.
Bowlby theories agree while other disagree to a certain degree with other theories about the attachment of an individual life's pan. Some of the conclusive points of his study included; First, the aspect of a child to be attached to one specific figure (Kail, 2013).  He argued that there is a stronger bond between the mother and the kind which is normally very strong than the others. However, he does not rule out the fact that there is other attachment bonds for children (Garrison, 1985). He arguably indicates that this special attachment refers to the maternal attachment and if broken would lead to serious negative consequences.
He further, argued that it crucial for a kid to have the maternal attachment for at least two years from the time of birth, otherwise there is a likely hood of the child to develop an irreversible long-term loss of attachment with the mother. The outcomes of his finding though has a lot of unanswered questions such as whether or not to take the children to the day cares so as to be at work or not to (Garrison, 1985). The work of Bowlby is receiving both critics and support. For example, Harlow's research with the monkeys really supported Bowlby's theory in that, monkeys that when reared in isolation suffered emotional and social problems in old age (Kail, 2013).  However, is receiving critics in that his theories are unethical and one that had limited value in attempting to explain the effects of deprivation of human infants.
Konrad Lorenz (1935) also supports Bowlby's theory. He argues that Bowlby's theory is an attachment process of imprinting. In his study that involved goose eggs, he found out that the geese follow the first moving object they see for the first twelve to seventeen hours after hatching (Garrison, 1985). He called this process imprinting and takes place without actual feeding taking place. He concluded that after thirty-two hours after hatching, the imprinting would not happen and the process is irreversible. However, his study received critics in that it was based on gooses and not humans (Kail, 2013). It's worth noting that all of these theories of attachment are evolutionary theories and argue that children are born with a biological preprogram to help them to form attachments with others. These attachments, in turn, help them to stay alive.
Secondly, the other category of theories is the learning also known as behaviorist theory of attachment such as the Dollard and Miller theory which states that attachments are learned behaviors. He, however, continues to state that the formation is on the basis of the provision of food as the infant obviously will tend to form an attachment with the person who feeds it (Garrison, 1985). These theories differ with the evolutionary theories in that the stimulus to the attachment is not food as suggested by the learning theory but as a result of care and responsiveness.
2.1 Evaluation of theoretical explanations of the changes that occur during adolescence.
Adolescence is one of the stages of an individual life span which reflects states of a child growing to maturity. Simply, adolescence can be defined as a stage of human development whereby there is a transition period amid puberty and adulthood. In the study of adolescence, there is two contradiction in the views of these theories (Garrison, 1985). These are the classical point of view and the empirical points of view. The classical view adopts the concept of storm and stress while the empirical point of view supports the concept of adolescence being a relatively peaceful and harmonious process.