Explanations for attachment

• Classical conditioning

  Is the idea that we learn through association of a stimulus and a response
• Classical conditioning= An unconditioned stimulus causes an unconditioned response. If the unconditioned stimulus is paired enough times with a neutral stimulus, the neutral stimulus will become the conditioned

  stimulus that causes a conditioned response
• Classical conditioning In attachment


  Infant is hungry (uncomfortable feeling) so craves food

  • The food is the unconditioned stimulus which gives the infant pleasure, pleasure being the

  unconditioned response

  • The primary caregiver provides the food and so at the start is the neutral stimulus

  but after providing food a number of times the infant begins to associate the primary caregiver

  with the food

  • The primary caregiver then becomes the conditioned stimulus and pleasure is the

  conditioned response
• Operant conditioning


  Positive reinforcement - When something desirable is obtained in response to doing something

  Negative reinforcement - When something undesirable is removed when something happens
• Operant conditioning in attachment


  Babies feel discomfort when they're hungry and so have a desire to get food to remove

  the discomfort.

  • They find that if they cry, their mother will come and feed them - so the discomfort is

  removed (negative reinforcement).

  • The mother is therefore associated with food and the baby will want to be close to her
  • This produces ‘attachment behaviour’ e.g distress when separated from mother
• Animal studies do not support learning theory explanations. The goslings in Lorenz imprint within minutes of being born so have no time to learn.

  Furthermore, Harlow's monkeys prefer the cloth mother that provides comfort to the mother that

  provides food In both studies, food is not the primary reason for attachment
• Schaffer and Emerson also demonstrated that food was not a factor in the attachment: In

  over 1/3rd of cases, the mother did not do all of the day-to-day care for the infant such as

  feeding or bathing/nappy changing Yet in all cases, she became the PCG. Schaffer and Emerson

  stated that the attachment was more about who was the most sensitive and loving in

  responding to the baby: Clearly the mother in these cases.

  So again, food has nothing to do with attachment
• the learning theory is highly reductionist only looking at food as the main drive behind attachment