Explanations of attachment

• Learning theory

  • Learning theory (behaviourism) sees behaviour as learned through experiences via the process of association. Two types of learning is classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
• Classical conditioning

  • Classical conditioning occurs when a response produced naturally by a certain stimulus, becomes associated with another stimulus that isn't normally associated with that particular response.
• Operant conditioning

  • Operant conditioning occurs via reinforcement of behaviour, thus increasing the chances of behaviour occurring again.
• Cupboard Love Theory

  • The belief that attachments are formed with people who feed infants
• Learning theory is the belief that attachments develop through conditioning processes.
• Bowlby's monotropic theory

  • the idea that infants have an inbuilt tendency to make an initial attachment with one attachment figure, usually the mother.
• Social releasers are innate, infant social behaviours that stimulate adult interaction and caregiving.
• The critical period is a specific time period within which an attachment must form.
• Example of social releasers:

  1. Crying - to attract parents' attention
  2. Looking, smiling and vocalising - to maintain parental attention and interest.
  3. Following and clinging - to gain and maintain proximity (physical closeness) to parents.
• Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis suggests that continual disruption of the attachment between the infant and primary caregiver (i.e., mother) could result in long-term cognitive, social, and emotional difficulties for that infant. Bowlby originally believed the effects to be permanent and irreversible.
• Bowlby argued that the first 2.5 years of life, the critical period, were crucial. If the child was separated from their primary attachment figure (often the mother) for an extended period of time and in the absence of substitute care, the damage was inevitable.
• Internal Working Model

  • A cognitive framework used to understand the world, self and others, that acts as a template for future relationships based on an infant's primary attachment.
• Monotropy

  • An innate tendency to become attached to one particular adult.