121b. Attachment Theory around the world

This is the second part of the episode on the book Multiple Faces of Attachment - Cultural Variations on a Fundamental Human Need. In this section, we will look at three societies - the Beng (Ivory Coast), Nso (Cameroon), and Makassar (Sulawesi) - to see how children are brought up there, and the extent to which Attachment Theory as it is currently formulated makes sense within these example societies. We will see the themes of the child not "belonging" to parents, alloparenting or additive parenting, the need for the mother to get back to work after birth, the lack of an ideology of mother love, and child autonomy and choice concerning its caregivers as factors that undermine the basic thinking of Attachment Theory, and expose it as ultimately ethnocentric. Finally, we will see an example of where application of Attachment Theory's suggestions seems to actually lead to harm, as a final demonstration of the shortcomings of this psychological theory. Enjoy the episode.