Child psychologists who belong to various schools of thought are in agreement in one respect: Almost all of them argue that attachment (the establishment of infants’ emotional ties to primary caregivers) is one of the most important, if not the most important, developmental accomplishments of infancy. Different researchers, however, give different explanations of the reasons for this phenomenon. Some of them believe that attachment develops as a result of the gratification by caregivers of infants’ physiological needs; this belief can easily be challenged by the fact that infants develop attachment to their fathers who, as a rule, do not contribute much to the gratification of their children’s physiological needs. Others believe that attachment is innately predetermined, that is, that infants are born predisposed to become attached to their primary caregivers (the findings and observations that are not consistent with this view are discussed later). The third explanation of attachment has been formulated by the Vygotskians; they argue that the roots of attachment should be sought in the history of emotional interactions of infants with primary caregivers. What follows is the Vygotskian analysis of how infant-caregiver emotional interactions develop.

The Development of Infant-Caregiver Emotional Interactions

As discussed in Chapter 1, Vygotsky emphasized newborn infants’ helplessness, their inability to satisfy vital physiological needs by themselves. Indeed, in contrast to animal offsprings, human babies are born with just several reflexes serving the survival purpose, which, to make it worse, are not fully developed. For example, even such a basic reflex as sucking is so imperfect in newborn babies that they, as a matter of fact, must learn how to suck! At first glance, this “biological helplessness” of human infants is their great disadvantage, especially in comparison with animal offsprings that are born much better equipped to meet the demands and challenges of the environment. This “disadvantage” of infants that results in their dependence on adults, however, is very important: It becomes the basis for the development of infant-caregiver emotional interactions.