A01

• Who created the learning theory of attachment?

  Dollard and Miller (50)
• Why is it sometimes called the 'cupboard of love' explanation?

  It emphasises the importance of food in attachment formation
• Who do children love?

  Whoever feeds them
• What does CC involve?

  Learning to associate 2 stimuli

  In attachment:

  UCS (food) leads to UCR (a feeling of pleasure) - this response isn't learned so it's an unconditioned response
• What does a caregiver start as?

  A neutral stimulus e.g. a thing that produces a neutral response
• What does the person providing the food over time become?

  Associated with food - the NS becomes the CS
• What happens once conditioning has taken place?

  This sight of the caregiver produces a CR of pleasure

  According to a learning theorist, this is the basis of attachment love
• What does operant conditioning explain?

  Why babies cry for comfort (an important building block for attachment)
• What does crying lead to?

  A response from the caregiver e.g. feeding

  As long as the caregiver provides the correct response, crying is reinforced because it produces a pleasurable consequence
• What happens at the same time as the baby is reinforced for crying?

  The caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops - negative reinforcement is escaping from something unpleasant, which is reinforcing
• What does this interplay of positive/negative reinforcement strengthen?

  An attachment
• What is hunger?

  A primary drive, an innate biological motivator
• Why is hunger an innate biological motivator?

  We are motivated to eat to reduce the hunger drive
• Why is attachment a secondary drive?

  It's learned by association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive
• What did Sears et al (57) suggest?


  That as caregivers provide food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them