Explanations of attachment

• What is the learning theory of attachment?

  • Dollard and Miller proposed that attachment is 'learned' rather than an innate behaviour
  • Emphasises the importance of the attachment figure as a provider of food
• How does classical conditioning explain attachment?

  • Unconditioned stimulus (food)-> unconditioned response (pleasure)
  • Neutral stimulus (caregiver) -> produces no response
  • Unconditioned stimulus (food) + neutral stimulus (caregiver) -> unconditioned response (pleasure)
  • Conditioned stimulus (caregiver) -> conditioned response (pleasure)
  • Children associate pleasure with food - when caregiver becomes main source for this they become an attachment figure and CR is known as love
• How does operant conditioning explain attachment?

  • Learning from the consequences of behaviour - pleasant consequence (reward) leads to reinforcement, negative consequence (punishment) doesn't
  • Caregivers usually feed (positive consequence) babies when they cry, so crying is reinforced
  • Caregiver experiences negative reinforcement as they feed the baby to escape from the unpleasantness of a babies' crying
  • Mutual reinforcement strengthens an attachment
• What is the concept of drive reduction?

  • Primary drive: an innate biological motivator, thought to be hunger
  • Sears: because caregivers provide food, the primary drive is generalised to them
  • Attachment is a secondary drive - association between caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive
• What is one strength of the learning theory of attachment?

  • Social learning theory: Jay and Vespo (1988) parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviours like hugging
  • Parents positively reinforce attachment behaviours by showing approval when babies display their own e.g. laughing and cooing at a baby's smile or cuddles
  • Shows that practical everyday behaviours can be explained by acquisition theories, increasing face validity
• Why did Bowlby reject the learning theory?

  • Saw that infants did not readily take to whoever just fed them
  • Proposed an evolutionary explanation - attachment is an innate system that provides a survival advantage
  • Attachment evolved as a mechanism to keep young animals safe by ensuring they stayed close to adult caregivers
• What is Bowlby's monotropic theory?

  • Places great emphasis on a child's attachment to ONE (mono) particular caregiver, believing it is different and more important than others
  • Believed the more time we spent with this primary attachment figure the better
• What is the law of continuity?

  The more constant and predictable a child's care is, the better the quality of their attachment.
• What is the law of accumulated separation?

  • The effects of separation from the mother add up - substantial time apart from a caregiver risks poor quality attachment
  • Safest dose of separation is 0
• What is Bowlby's critical period?

  • Around 6 months to 2 years old where an infant's attachment system is active
  • If attachments are not formed within this time a child will find it much harder to form attachments later
• What are social releasers?

  • A babies' set of innate 'cute' behaviours (smiling and cooing) which encourage attention and social interaction from adults
  • Activate adult attachment systems and make them feel love towards the baby
  • Shows attachment is a reciprocal process as both infant and caregiver are 'hard-wired' to become attached
• What is the internal working model?

  • Children form a mental representation of their relationships with their primary caregivers - serving as a model for what relationships are like
  • e.g. loving relationship with a reliable caregiver forms an expectation that all relationships should be loving and reliable, and will work to bring these qualities to their own
  • Affects child's later ability to become parents as people tend to base their parenting behaviour on how they were parented themselves
• What is one limitation of the learning theory of attachment?

  • Contrasting evidence from animal studies: Lorenz (1952)'s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw regardless of whether the object was associated with food or not
  • Harlow (1958)'s monkeys displayed attachment behaviour towards a soft surrogate mother in preference to a wired one which provided milk
  • Shows that factors other than association with food are important in the formation of attachments
• What is another limitation of the learning theory of attachment?

  • Contrasting evidence from human studies: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found babies tend to form their main attachment to their mother regardless of whether she was the one who usually fed them
  • Isabella et al. (1989) found high levels of interactional synchrony predicted attachment quality
  • Shows that factors not related to feeding are still important in attachment formation
• What is another limitation of the learning theory of attachment?

  • Limited explanation: both classical and operant conditioning explanations suggest babies play a relatively passive role in attachment development, simply responding to associations with comfort or reward
  • Feldman and Eidelman (2007)'s research on baby's alert phases signalling they are ready for interaction actually suggest they take a more active role in the interactions that produce attachment
  • Conditioning may not be an adequate explanation
• What is one strength of Bowlby's monotropic theory?

  • Research support for social releasers: Brazelton et al. (1975) observed babies trigger adult interaction using social releasers - adults were then instructed to ignore these social releasers
  • Babies who were normally responsive became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless
  • Illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development, suggesting they are important for attachment development
• What is another strength of Bowlby's monotropic theory?

  • Research support for internal working model: Bailey et al. (2007) assessed quality of attachments in 99 mothers with their 1 year old babies and also the mothers' quality of attachment to their own parents
  • Found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies
  • Supports Bowlby's ideas that mothers' ability to attach to their own babies is influenced by their IWMs
• What is one limitation of Bowlby's monotropic theory?

  • Lacks validity: Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that despite most babies will attach to one person at first, a significant amount formed multiple attachments at the same time
  • Just because the first attachments are stronger does not mean that they are necessarily different in quality from the child's other attachments as they all provide the same key qualities like emotional support, a safe base, etc.
  • Means Bowlby may be incorrect that there is a unique quality and important to a child's primary attachment
• What is another limitation of Bowlby's monotropic theory?

  • Socially sensitive: laws of continuity and accumulated separation suggest that working mothers may negatively affect their child's emotional development
  • Burman (1994) said this belief sets up mothers to take the blame if anything may go wrong in the child's future, giving people an excuse to restrict mothers' activities
  • Theory may not be considered socially acceptable according to today's standards specifically regarding feminist concerns