Explanations of attachment: learning theory

• What is the learning theory?

  Children form attachments because of food.

  • Begin to associate certain things with food (e.g. the person/room)
  • Association between the caregiver and food creates an attachment
  • Cupboard love
• What is Cupboard love?

  Strongest attachment formed with the person who feeds them the most.
• How would you use Classical conditioning for the Learning theory?

  1. Food (UCS) = pleasure (UCR)
  2. Caregiver (NS) = no response
  3. Food (UCS) + caregiver (NS) = pleasure (UCR)
  4. Caregiver (CS) = pleasure (CR)
• What is Negative reinforcement in operant conditioning?

  Encouraging of certain behaviours by removing a negative outcome

  • Unpleasant feeling of hunger is taken away when the baby receives food from the mother. Therefore, the baby will keep approaching its mother and asking for food.
• What is the drive reduction theory?

  When an animal is uncomfortable, they have a drive to reduce the feeling.
• What is a strength of the learning theory as an explanation of attachments?

  Supports nurture debate

  • Suggests that attachments are the result of learning, which therefore supports a nurture-based view of behaviour. This is an easier approach to attachment, compared to nature, which suggests that our behavioural characteristics are inherited. An attachment can be built up with a nurture belief, therefore making it better for the infant and the caregiver.
• What is a limitation of the learning theory as an explanation of attachments?

  Counter-evidence from animal studies

  • Lorenz's geese imprinted of the first thing that they saw.
  • Harlow's monkeys imprinted of the cloth mother rather than the wire mother (even if the wire mother supplied food).
• What is a counter argument of the learning theory as an explanation of attachments?


  Animal studies cannot be readily applied to human behaviour, as humans have a much more complex attachment system. For example, they are more socially and emotionally intelligent than monkeys.
• What is a limitation of the learning theory as an explanation of attachments?



  Alternative explanations

  • Bowlby proposed his monotropic-attachment theory, which believes infants have an innate readiness to form an attachment to their caregiver to protect them from harm when they’re young and vulnerable. This explanation not only explains how an attachment forms, but also the purpose – to enhance survival. This is a more comprehensive explanation rather than learning theory, which is environmentally reductionist