Bowlby's Monotropic theory

• Bowlby's theory of attachment is an evolutionary theory and suggests that attachment is an innate and is important because it gives a survival advantage to the infant (i.e., attachment is adaptive. Attachment behaviours and their caregivers have evolved through natural selection. This is a biological process and takes place during a critical period of around 2 years. Infant who do not form an attachment will have a difficulty forming attachments later on.
• Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a set of innate 'cute' features + behaviours that encourage attention from adults (social releasers) e.g., having features such as big eyes, small chin, crying cooing and gripping. These activate the innate adult attachment system, the tendency for adults to care for them. Bowlby recognised that attachment is a reciprocal process. Both the mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached and social releasers triggers this response in CG.
• • Bowlby proposed that the relationship that the infant has with his/her primary attachment figure is of special significance in their emotional development and is a more important relationship than the rest of their development. This is called monotropy. A child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their Primary care giver, called an internal working model. This gives the child a model of what relationships are like. In the learning theory, this acts as a template for all future relationships as it generates expectations about what intimate, loving relationships are like.
• According to the continuity hypothesis individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent. They are likely to have secure relationships as adults.
• strength: straightforward evidence to support Bowlby's theory of attachment, from research studies which suggest that cute infant behaviours are intended to initiate social interaction and that doing so is important for the baby. Researchers observed mothers and babies during their interactions. Primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore the babies.The babies initially showed some distress, but when the attachment figures continued to ignore them, some responded by curling up and lying motionless.
• continuing strength: evidence from research studiesThe fact the children responded so strongly supports Bowlby's ideas about the significance of infant social behaviour in eliciting caregiving and thus supports Bowlby's theory of attachment to have some validity.
• weakness: some undermining evidence for Bowlby's theory of attachment from research studies. For example, Bowlby suggested that babies formed one attachment to their PCG was special and different form later attachments. This is not supported by Schaffer and Emerson (1964). They found that most babies did attach to one person first. However, they also found that significant minority appeared able to form multiple attachment at the same time. This suggests that the idea monotropy may not be externally valid as it does not apply to all infants. Thus, undermining Bowlby's theory of attachment.
• strength: other supporting evidence for Bowlby's theory of attachment from research studies. The idea of the IWM is testable because it predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed down from one generation to the next. Bailey et al (2007) assessed 99 mothers with one-year-old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure and they also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mothers by observation. They found that the mothers were much more likely to have children classified as poor according to the observation.
• Continuing strength: supporting evidence This clearly supports Bowlby's theory of attachment and the IWM of attachment being passed through families (the continuity hypothesis). Therefore, this supports the validity of Bowlby's theory of attachment
• weakness: monotropy is a socially sensitive issueThis is because it has major implications for the lifestyle choices mothers make when their children are young. The law of accumulate separation states that having substantial time apart from a primary attachment figure increases the risk of poor quality attachment that will disadvantage the child later. It therefore, pushes mothers into particular lifestyle choices with economic implications, such as not returning back to work when a child is born or placing the child in a day care setting.
• continuing weakness:Burman (1994) has pointed out that this places a burden of responsibility on mothers and is therefore a controversial topic in individualistic cultures. Additionally, Bowlby underestimates the role of the father, creating an outdated + sexist viewpoint.To support this, Cohn (2014) showed that the number of fathers who stay at home and care for their children has quadrupled over the past 25 years, illustrating how the father can be a primary caregiver, and questioning whether Bowlby's monotropic theory can be generalised to other social and historical settings.