Explanations for attachment

Learning theory & Bowlby's theory

Learning theory

Suggests that attachment is not innate but taught through either classical or operant conditioning. They learn to attach because their caregiver becomes associated to an award.

Classical conditioning

• Learning by the association of two stimuli. Learning theory suggests that babies attach by learning to associate their caregivers with food which they need to survive.

• Food is the UCS

• Pleasure is the UCR → they feel pleasure when they eat automatically, it is not a taught response.

• The caregiver is initially the NS → then the baby learns to associate food with their caregiver.

• The caregiver is now the CS → the UCS paired with the NS creates the CS.

Operant conditioning

• Learning from the consequences of a behaviour.

• Positive reinforcement: If a behaviour provides a positive consequence, the behaviour will be repeated. The behaviour is reinforced.

• Negative reinforcement: If a behaviour removes a negative consequence, the behaviour will be repeated. The behaviour is reinforced.

• If the behaviour provides a negative consequence, the behaviour will not be repeated. The behaviour is punished.

OC example

• A baby cries and is fed. The baby feels pleasure from the food, stopping the discomfort of feeling hunger.

• The behaviour of crying is reinforced as it leads to a pleasant consequence. The caregiver is the reinforcer.

• Reinforcement is a two way process.

• The caregiver receives negative reinforcement when hearing the baby cry.

• This happens when the caregiver gives the baby food to stop it from crying.

• The removal of the negative consequence leads to the caregiver repeating the behaviour of feeding the child.

This is also called cupboard love

Primary and secondary drives

• Learning theory links to drive reduction → hunger is a primary drive as it is an innate motivation.

• Sears 1957 suggested that as caregivers provide food the primary drive of hunger is generalised to them. attachment is a secondary drive as it is learned by the association of the caregiver and the satisfaction of the secondary drive (hunger)

Strengths

Learning theory provides evidence for ‘safety conditioning’ → it explains that infants can become attached to caregivers because they learn to associate them with safety and comfort, not just food.

Limitations

• Not supported by animal studies → Lorenz found that geese imprinted on the first moving object that they saw, and Harlow’s monkeys displayed attachment to the cloth mothers rather than to the one that supplied food.

• Contradictory evidence → Schaffer and Emerson (1964) studied mother and baby interactions and found that the babies main attachment figure was their mother even if someone else was feeding them.

Bowlby’s monotropic theory

Suggests that babies have an innate instinct to attach as a survival mechanism. He rejected the learning theory of attachment and looked to Lorenz and Harlow instead.

Monotropy

• Bowlby believed that attachment was formed to one specific caregiver, and that this attachment is different and more important than others.

• Bowlby called this person a mother but it may be a father or another caregiver (does not have to be female)

• He believed that the more time a baby spent with his mother figure the better.

The law of continuity

The more constant and predictable a child’s care is the better their quality of attachment.

The law of accumulated separation

The effects of every separation of mother and child add up. Therefore ‘the safest dose is zero dose’ (Bowlby)

Social releasers

• Bowlby suggested that babies are born with innate behaviours that help the child attach to the caregiver.

• These include cooing, smiling or gripping a finger.

• These behaviours are supposed to encourage attention from adults so that an attachment can be formed.

• Where caregivers are more social and accessible (respond to social releasers) the attachment between the adult and the baby will be stronger.

Critical period

Bowlby suggested that the critical period was around 3-6 months in which the attachment period is active. The most sensitive period was around 6 months. If an attachment is not formed in this time the child will struggle to form attachments later on.

Internal working model

• At a young age the child forms a mental representation of what relationships look like based on their primary attachment figure.

• If they have a strong attachment with a loving and caring caregiver they will grow up to form this in other relationships.

• If they have an unattentive attachment figure they will grow up to form negative and unstable relationships.

• Their model will influence how they act as a parent later on in life. People tend to base their parenting on how they where parented, which explains why children from functional families raise similar families themselves.

Strengths

• There is research to support IWM theory → Bailey et al (2007) found that in a group of 100 mothers and babies, the quality of a the mothers’ attachment to their own primary attachment figures was similar to the quality of attachment with their own babies.

• This supports Bowlby’s idea that a mother’s IVM is based on their own relationship with their mother.

Limitations

• The concept of Monotropy may lack validity. Dagan et al (2020) found that infants tend to form multiple attachments rather than one special relationship and that the quality of these relationships does not affect each other.

• In Rutter et al (2020) study on Romanian adoptees, they found that the orphans can still form an attachment after the critical period.

• The laws of continuity and accumulated separation suggest that mothers who work may negatively affect their child’s emotional development. This belief allows mothers to take the blame for everything which can negatively impact their wellbeing.