explanations and types of attachment

• 'cupboard love theory': as babies we are blank slates, but from birth can learn through our environment and experiences
• classical conditioning: learning to associate two stimuli together to help form an attachment
• Pavlov's dogs - classical conditioning:

  • dogs were placed in isolated environment and restrained in a harness, a bowl of food was placed in front of them and a device was used to measure how much saliva was produced

  he presented the dogs with the sound of a bell, but they didn't salivate, they then salivated when they saw the food and repeatedly presented them with the sound of a bell first before introducing the food
• pavlov's findings: the dogs salivated when they heard the bell and then began to associate that sound with food

  • suggests that learned associations between stimuli can influence the behaviour of someone
• Pavlov's evaluation

  strength:

  • lab experiment, high control over extraneous variables - can be replicated due to high standardisation
  • high reliability as he used different stimuli when repeating the experiment
  • high validity, animals are unlikely to show demand characterstics

  weakness:

  • cannot be generalised to humans as we are more complex
• operant conditioning: learning to repeat behaviour depending on the consequences, helping to maintain and develop attachment behaviour

  • positive reinforcement is repeating behaviour due to a positive consequence
  • negative reinforcement is repeating behaviour to avoid something unpleasant
• classical conditioning of attachment:

  1. before: food (unconditional stimulus) = happy baby (unconditional response)
  2. during: mother (neutral stimulus) + food (unconditional stimulus) = happy baby (unconditional response)
  3. after: mother (conditional stimulus) = happy baby (conditional response)

  association between the mother and food, results in establishing attachment between the mother and the happy infant
• drive reduction: humans have different drives of behaviour, hunger is a primary drive that is innate and we are motivated to eat to reduce hunger

  • attachment is a secondary drive as infants cannot feed themselves
• learning theory evaluation:

  strength:

  • lab experiment - high control of extraneous variables and has a high level of standardisation - replicated easily to find reliability in other studies
  • environmentally reductionist as it breaks attachment into basic units

  weakness:

  • interactional synchrony may be a better predictor of attachment than association with food
  • animal studies show that food is not important for attachment - Harlow
• Bowlby's monotropic theory: attachment is innate with us and that it is adaptive (forming an attachment to help the survival of a child)

  • may baby talk (cooing or making noises) to form an attachment with the caregiver
• social releases: babies have social releases which unlock the desire for adults to take care of them - behavioural or physical

  • physical = chubby body, big eyes
  • behavioural = gripping things, giggling and making noises
• monotropy: one special type of attachment that is different and more important in contrast of others - believed this person was the mother, more time spent with her than the better it is going to be for the attachment

  • law of continuity: primary caregiver provides continuous care because the needs are not predictable
  • law of accumulated separation: safest dose of absence is zero - bowlby's states that mothers should never be away from their babies
• internal working model:

  first relationship forms a schema (template) for all later relationships in the infants life - all future relationships are based on their early attachment relationship
• critical period: more significant period for the formation of attachments - attachment behaviours needed to occur in the first two years and a half of attachment - if not formed in this time then it becomes difficult to form later attachments
• monotropic theory evaluation:

  strength:

  • Lorenz found a critical period with his goslings, supporting idea of attachment features
  • internal working model is supported by Harlow's study; monkeys grew up in a cage without a mother and went on to abandon their offspring

  weakness:

  • schaffer and emerson's research challenge the monotropic theory as their findings suggested that infants could form attachments with multiple people at one point - no point was there an attachment more significant than another
• Strange situation - Ainsworth

  lab-based experiment with a non-participant observation.

  • mother and infant were observed in a mirror where the observer could see them but the mother could only see the mirror

  the observers assessed four types of behaviour;

  • secure base, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour

  1. baby encouraged to explore
  2. stranger enters and talks to caregiver
  3. caregiver leaves
  4. caregiver returns and stranger leaves
  5. caregiver leaves
  6. stranger returns
  7. caregiver returns and reunited
• types of attachments:

  • secure attachment: happy to explore but show a secure base to caregiver, easily comforted
  • insecure-avoidant: explore freely but do not seek proximity, showing no reaction when caregiver leaves
  • insecure-resistance: seek greater proximity than others and explore less, show high level of stranger and separation anxiety
• strange situation evaluation:

  strength:

  • lab observation under high control of extraneous variables - highly standardised and can be replicated easily
  • inter-rater reliability, two observers formed an agreement - adding validity

  weakness:

  • mothers knew that they were being watched and may have played under demand characteristics - affecting validity of results and wanted parenting to seem socially desirable
  • cant be generalised as it only focuses on relationship between mothers