A- Explanations of Attachment- Bowlby's Monotropic Theory

Question 1

What did Bowlby argue?

Answer 1

• Bowlby argued attachments evolved because of their survival value.
• Children have an innate drive to become attached to a caregiver because attachment has long-term benefits

Bowlby’s theory (1969) is an Evolutionary Theory. He proposed infants form an attachment to a caregiver because attachment is adaptive. Attachment is seen as a biological process because he argues infants are born with an ‘attachment gene’ that programmes them to exhibit innate behaviours called ‘social releasers’ which increase their chances of receiving care and surviving

• Similarly, the attachment gene also drives parents to provide care as this is also adaptive (increases chances of one’s genes continuing into the next generation). Parents instinctively protect their infant and care for them whilst they are young and defenceless during their ‘critical period’.

Question 2

Which four characteristics aid the formation of an attachment?

Answer 2

1. Monotropy
2. Social releasers
3. The critical period
4. Internal working model

Question 3

What does monotropy mean?

Answer 3

• Bias towards one individual, the primary attachment figure.
• This one attachment is most usually the mother but not necessarily the biological mother would be the person who responds most sensitively to the infant’s needs.

Question 4

What does the primary attachment figure?

Answer 4

This primary attachment figure provides the main foundation for emotional development, self-esteem and later relationships with peers, lovers and one’s own children.

Question 5

What are social releasers?

Answer 5

• Bowlby suggested that babies are born with a set of innate ‘cute’ behaviours like smiling, cooing and gripping that encourages attention from adults. These increase their chances of receiving care and surviving
• Social releasers trigger a response in caregivers and so attachment is a reciprocal process.

Question 6

What is the critical period/sensitive period?

Answer 6

• Since attachment is innate, there is a limited window for its development i.e. a critical period.
• Bowlby argued that this period is the first 2 years of a child’s life.
• If an attachment is not formed in this window, then it would be extremely difficult for the baby to form any further attachments.

Question 7

What is the internal working model?

Answer 7

The attachment between a caregiver and infant (i.e. the monotropy) becomes a template or internal working model about what future relationships will be like and what to expect from others.

Question 8

What is the continuity hypothesis?

Answer 8

• The view that there is a link between the early attachment relationship and later emotional behaviour; individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent, whereas insecurely attached children have more social and emotional difficulties later in childhood and adulthood.

Question 9

What are the strengths of Bowlby’s theory of attachment?

Answer 9

1) Support for Monotropy
- Bowlby’s theory suggests that attachments have evolved to aid survival, and we should expect them to be universal .i.e. applicable in all cultures.
- Tronick et al. (1992) studied an African tribe in Zaire where babies are looked after and breastfed by other women, although these babies slept with their mother at night.
- It was found that these babies still showed one primary attachment.
- This also supports the idea of monotropy.

2) Support for internal working model
- 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.
- The researchers also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mothers by observation.
- It was found that the mothers who reported poor attachment to their own parents in the interviews were much more likely to have children classified as poor according to the observations.

3) Support for social releasers : There is clear evidence to indicate that cute innate behaviours are intended to initiate social interactions and attention which is important for babies for forming attachments through. For example, Brazelton et al (1975) observed babies and mothers during their interactions, reporting existence of interactional synchrony. The study was then extended from an observation to an experiment, where primary attachment figure were instructed to ignore the babies’ signals (social releasers) . The babies initially showed distress, but when primary attachment figure continued to ignore them some babies responded by curling up and lying motionless. The babies respond so strongly supports bowlby’s ideas about the significance of infant’s social behaviour to elicit caregiving.

Question 10

What are the weaknesses of Bowlby’s theory of attachment?

Answer 10

1) The idea that an attachment cannot be formed after the critical period has been challenged
- Although children may find it harder to form an attachment after the critical period, it is very much possible.
- Tizard and Hodges found that 21/22 of children adopted aged 4 years went on to form a secure attachment with their adopted parents by the time they were 8 years old.
- Also, the idea that a poor first attachment relationship means that the child will always have poor future relationships has also been challenged (law of continuity is hard determinist)

2) Bowlby ignores the role of the father and thus his theory is outdated and sexist.
- Bowlby’s theory also ignores the role of the father as a primary attachment figure – since Bowlby focuses more on the role of the mother and only sees the father as a secondary attachment figure if at all.
- In fact, the father’s role is seen as primarily economic.
- As we have seen, that fathers play an important nowadays in the upbringing of children – so his theory can be seen as sexist and outdated

3) A weakness of Bowlby is that there is refuting evidence for the concept of monotropy. For example, Schaffer and Emerson’s (1964) study found that forming multiple attachments seemed to be the norm for babies, instead of having just one special bond. Around the age of 10 months 59% of the babies had multiple attachments. Furthermore, Bowlby implied that the main attachment is likely to be with the mother. However the study found that a third of the babies were strongly attached to their fathers instead. Thus Bowlby underestimated the potential for children to form attachments with the father and the study also contradict the claim that children form only one special attachment during development.
4) A weakness of Bowlby’s theory is that he failed to acknowledge the role of the child’s temperament in the attachment process. Kagan argued that an infant’s temperament explain their attachment behaviour. Infants who have “easy” temperament are more likely to become strongly attached compared to someone who has a “difficult” temperament. This indicates that Bowlby’s explanation is too narrow and focuses too much on the responsiveness of the caregiver, failing to acknowledge the role of child’s temperament. Thus, bowlby’s theory can be considered as incomplete