AQA PSYCHOLOGY - BOWLBY'S THEORY ATTACHMENT

• what is it?

  he proposed that human infants have an innate tendency to form attachments to their PCG - most often their mother
• adaptive -


  give our species an 'adaptive advantage' making us more likely to survive
• social releasers -


  infants become more attached to those who respond best to their social releasers, babies are programmed to behave in ways that encourage attention
• monotropy -


  he believed babies form one special attachment with their mother if the mother isn't available the infant could bond with another ever-present adult, mother-substitute
• evaluation: critical period - weakness

  Schaffer & emerson - multiple attachments - can still form out of this
• evaluation: adaptive - weakness


  if you don't have an attachment figure it decreases chance of survival so its crucial that we have that attachment
• evaluation: social releasers - weakness


  babies with disabilities may not show the same communications
• evaluation: monotropy - weakness


  may ignore the role of the father - can have the same attachment with someone apart other than the mother
• evaluation: monotropy - strength

  we need a primary care giver
• evaluation: internal working model - weakness


  children from orphanages can form attachments later still
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Brazleton et al


  observed mothers and babies during their interactions - reported the existence of interactional synchrony experiment - PCG's were to ignore their babies' signals findings - initially the babies were distressed then eventually curled up and lay motionless
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Brazleton et al - what does it show

  social releasers - babies are programmed to behave in ways that encourage attention
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Tronick et al


  studied Africans with different cultural practises to ours where infants were breastfed by several women. findings - they found one main attachment
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Tronick et al what does it show?

  monotropy - form one main attachment with their mother suggesting they don't attach from food
• temperament =

  how easily aggravated you are
• is temperament more important than attachment

  yes because they guide the relationship
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Sroufe et al

  they followed participants from infancy to late adolescence and found continuity between early attachment and later emotional/social behaviour children highest rated for social competence later in childhood were less isolated, more popular and empathetic
• evaluation: strength of Bowlby's theory - research - Sroufe et al - what does it show?


  internal working model -all future relationships will be based on the relationship with the caregiver. Bailey et al (2007) - assessed 99 mothers with 1 year old babies on their attachment to their mothers
• evaluation: weakness of Bowlby's theory - research - socially sensitive - what implications does Bowlby's idea of monotropy have?

  pressure on mothers - they 'need' to be the main attachment
• evaluation: weakness of Bowlby's research - socially sensitive research - Burman (1994)


  mothers are blamed for anything that goes wrong in a child's life and pushes mothers into making lifestyle choices
• more about Bailey et al (2007)


  the researchers also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mothers by observation mothers who reported poor attachments to their own parents were more likely to have child classified as poor - internal working model is passed through families