Attachment. A pancultural need but a cultural construct

• Attachment theory is postulating a monotropic understanding of relationships.
• The mother as the primary attachment figure is typical for Western middle class families.
• The majority of this world's population practices multiple caretaking arrangements.
• The multiple caretaking model must be based on different conceptions of relationships than the monotropic model.

Attachment theory can be considered as the most important theory for children's socioemotional development during the first years of life with substantial implications also for the application in clinical and educational fields. Attachment theory has been developed out of the prevailing Euro-American childcare philosophy and based on a selective review of knowledge available from different disciplines, including evolutionary theory, ethology, and systems theory. What is left out is systematic evidence for relationship formation beyond the exclusive dyadic Western mother–child format. Recent evidence published by cultural anthropologists, psychologists, and evolutionary theorists is discussed in this paper especially with respect to caregiving arrangements with multiple caregivers. It is concluded that there is not one model of relationship formation that is adaptive for all of the world's population.

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