formation of relationship

• this assumption of behaviour learnt through conditioning offers an explanation of how food provides attachment, through classical conditioning - the child simply associates food and mother together.
• food is an unconditioned stimulus that provides an unconditioned response (pleasure.)
• at the outset, mother is a neutral stimulus, however, because she is continually paired with the good, she slowly becomes associated with it until eventually mother alone can provide pleaure.
• mother has now become a conditioned stimulus and the pleasure she brings is a conditioned response.
• this explains the bond of attachment that forms the basis of the mother-infant relationship.