learning theory

• Dollard and Miller 


  Believe that caregiver- infant attachment can be explained by learning theory.
• cupboard love 


  children learn to love their parents because they feed them
• Classical conditioning

  • Food (unconditioned stimulus) provides babies with pleasure (unconditioned response)
  • Caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus (something that produces no response)
  • Caregiver provides food= baby associates them with food
  • Baby feels pleasure around caregiver (conditioned response and stimulus)
• Operant conditioning

  • Babies cry for comfort
  • When they cry, their caregiver responds to this by feeding them, for example
  • Caregiver continues with this response, babies will continue crying to gain the reward
  • Caregivers receive negative reinforcement because they feed the baby to stop it from crying (escaping something unpleasant)
  • This mutual reinforcement strengthens the attachment
• Refuting evidence from animal studies

  Learning theory suggests that babies form attachments because they provide them with food. however, Harlow's study shows that the monkeys attach to the caregiver that provides them with the most comfort, despite who gives them food. COUNTERPOINT- it can be argued that animal studies cant be generalised to humans as we are more complex species, so the evidence from this study may not be valid
• Conditioning involved in other aspects of attachment

  Unlikely that food is the central role in attachment. Babies may associate feeling warm and comfortable with a certain adult, which may influence the choice of the main attachment figure.
• Refuting evidence from human studies

  Schaffer and Emerson found babies attach to their mothers first regardless of who fed them. Isabelle also found that interactional synchrony predicts attachment quality. These factors have nothing to do with feeding.