Internal working model

• John Bowlby (1988)


  Rejected the learning theory as an explanation for attachment

  
  

  Proposed that attachment was an innate system that gives you a survival advantage
• Monotrophy

  the beluef that infants are born with the need to form a primary attachment with one caregiver
• Law of continuity


  The more consistent and reliable the care the stronger the attachment
• Law of accumulated separation


  The effects of every separation from the mother adds up
• Social releases

  Babies are born with cute actions to attract the attention of the caregiver

  e.g big eyes, small chin, crying, cooing
• Critical period

  The time in which attachment must form if it is to form at all
• Critical period length

  first 6 months the attachment system is active - viewed more as a sensitive period

  Critical period - 2 years
• Bowlby proposed the

  Internal working model
• Internal working model


  The relationships formed in childhood mirror the ones they later develop
• EVALUATION - Weakness - Lacks validity


  • Schaffer and Emmerson (1964) - Not only one attatchment is formed at once
  • The first relationship formed is different, not stronger
• EVALUATION - strength - Heidi Bailey et al (2007)

  1. Measured attachment between 99 mothers and babies and mothers primary attachment figure
  2. Found that mothers with poor attachments were more likely to have poor attachments with their child