Learning theory -Explanations

• What is learning theory

  • behaviour is learned = Nurture (nature vs nurture)
  • All behaviour (including attachment) is learned through either classical or operant conditioning
• What is the cupboard love theory?

  The belief that children learn to love whoever feeds

  them!
• How does classical conditioning link to attachment?

  • The person who feeds the infant becomes associated with food
  • The feeder eventually produces the pleasure associated with food
  • Pleasure now becomes a conditioned response
  • This association between an individual and a sense of pleasure is the attachment bond
• Classical Conditioning:

  NS —> no response

  Mother —>

  UCS —> UCR

  Food Pleasure/happy

  NS + UCS —> UCR

  Mother + food —> pleasure

  CS —> CR

  Mother —> pleasure
• How does operant conditioning explain attachment?

  • Learning occurs when we are rewarded for doing something
  • Positive reinforcement (baby’s perspective
  • Negative reinforcement (mother’s perspective)
• Positive reinforcement in attachment

  • baby cries —> receives food (reward)
  • This increases the behaviour
  • reward reinforces the bond with the person who feeds them
• Negative reinforcement in attachment

  • baby cries (unpleasant) —> caregiver learns that crying is removed of they feed the baby
  • This behaviour increases
  • Strengthens bond = leads to attachment
• Dollard and Miller (1950)

  • Suggested hungry infant feels uncomfortable and this creates a drive to reduce discomfort
  • When fed, the drive is reduced and this produces pleasure (reward)
  • Food becomes a PRIMARY reinforcer
  • The person giving the food is associated with avoiding the discomfort
  • They become a SECONDARY reinforcer and source of reward in their own right
  • Attachment occurs as child seeks the person who can supply the reward
• Evaluation- counter evidence from animal studies

  • Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw + Harlow’s monkeys attached to a soft cloth wire monkey rather than the wire monkey with milk
  • In both studies, imprinting/attachment did not occur as a result of feeding
  • This shows that factors other than feeding are important in attachment formation
• Evaluation - counter evidence from human studies

  • Schaffer and Emerson showed that for many babies their main attachment was not to the person who fed them
  • Isabella et al - found that interactional synchrony (not related to food) predicted attachment quality
  • suggests that other factors are more important in attachment forming than feeding
• Evaluation- some elements of conditioning could be involved

  • It's unlikely food is most important to attachment, conditioning may still play some role
  • For example, a baby’s choice of primary attachment figure may be determined by the fact that a caregiver becomes associated with warmth and comfort
  • This means that conditioning could still be important in choice of attachment figures, though not the process of attachment formation