Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

• Steps of Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

  1. Vital
  2. Adaptive
  3. Innate
  4. Social Releasers
  5. Monotropy
  6. Internal Working Model
  7. Critical Period
• Monotropy

  • Described as monotropic because he placed great emphasis on a child’s attachment to one particular caregiver
  • The child’s attachment to this one caregiver is different and more important than others
  • The more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better the quality of their attachment
  • Absence of this can have consequences for the child
• Social Releasers and Critical Period

  • Babies are born with a set of innate ‘cute’ behaviours like
  • smiling and cooing that encourage attention from adults
  • Activates adult social interaction and so mother and baby are ‘hard-wired’ to become attached
  • Gradually builds the relationship between baby and caregiver
  • Bowlby proposed that there is a critical period which is 2.5 years
• Internal Working Model

  • Bowlby proposed that a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure
  • Serves as a model for what relationships are like
  • Form an expectation that all relationships are as loving and reliable and will bring these qualities to future relationships
  • The IWM affects the child’s later ability to be a parent themselves
• AO3 Bowlby: Validity of monotropy is challenged

  • Schaffer and Emerson found that although most babies did attach to one person at first a minority formed multiple attachments at the same time
  • The first attachment does appear to have a particularly strong influence on later behaviour this may simply mean it is stronger not necessarily different in quality from the child’s other
  • attachments
  • Other attachments to family members provide all the same key qualities
• AO3 Bowlby: Support for social releasers

  • Cute baby behaviours are designed to elicit interaction from caregivers
  • Researchers observed babies triggering interactions with adults using social releasers
  • The primary attachment figures were told to ignore their babies’ social releasers
  • Babies who were previously shown to be normally responsive became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless
  • This illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests that they are important in the process of attachment development
• AO3 Bowlby: Support for Internal Working Model

  • The idea of the internal working model predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed from one generation to the next.
  • Attachment relationships in 99 mothers and their one-year-old babies were assessed
  • Researchers measured the mothers’ attachment to their own primary attachment figures
  • The researchers also assessed the attachment quality of the babies
  • Mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies
• AO3 Bowlby: Feminist Concerns

  • Bowlby's theory suggests that mothers who work may negatively affect their child’s emotional development
  • This belief sets up mothers to take the blame for anything that goes wrong for the child in the future
  • It also gives people an excuse to restrict mothers’ activities such as returning to work.
  • It may have negative implications for day care and building attachments with someone who is not the mother