LEARNING THEORY

• What does learning theory focus on?

  The rewards provided by caregivers
• what is “cupboard love”?

  children love whoever feeds them, food is very important in attachment formation
• who proposed the learning theory of attachment?

  Dollard and Miller
• what is the role of classical conditioning?

  involves learning to associate two stimuli

  UCS (food) leads to UCR (feeling of pleasure)
• how does classical conditioning work in attachment?

  UCS is food -> UCR is pleasure

  caregiver starts as NS with no response

  UCS paired with NS -> UCR pleasure

  CS is caregiver -> CR is pleasure

  caregiver becomes an attachment figure after this
• what is the role of operant conditioning in attachment?

  explains why babies cry for comfort, leads to response from caregiver. If they provide correct response crying is reinforced because it produces a pleasurable consequence
• Strengths of learning theory

  some elements of conditioning could still be involved

  a baby could choose caregiver based on warmth and comfort, conditioning it’s important in choice of attachment figures

  real life application
• limitations of learning theory

  counter evidence from animal studies -

  lorenz Geese imprinted on first moving object, Harlow monkeys attached to soft surrogate. didn’t develop because of feeding

  counter evidence from human studies -

  Schaffer and Emerson showed it was not to person who fed them, Isabella found interactional synchrony predicted attachment quality

  suggests other factors are more important
• what does learning theory state

  babies attach to caregivers through association