Attachment: Bowlby

Question 1

AO1/Description

Answer 1

• Attachment is beneficial for survival (adaptive) so we’ve evolved attachment behaviours which make parents feed, care for, scare off predators etc
• Babies have social releasers to make parents stay proximate and care for their children i.e. crying
• Critical period up to about 2.5 years where attachment needs to occur for a health normal human to emerge i.e. separation causes emotional and intellectual issues e.g. Affectionless psychopathy (We think of it more now as a sensitive period)
• Monotropy: Usually one bond more important than any other, Bowlby usually focuses on the mother who the child will look to for care and attention rather than others
• Secure or safe base also ties into Bowlby’s theory (using your parent as a base from which to explore and interact with the world)- if they’re a safe base to explore the child becomes competent and resilient in new situations
• Internal working model- your early relationship becomes a schema for future relationships (how you expect to be treated)…continuity hypothesis (future relationships match early ones) i.e. if your mother is sensitive as a care giver this gets stored in your memory and becomes the basis for future relationships

Question 2

+AO3 Lorenz

Answer 2

baby geese go through imprinting and critical periods which shows that attachment is evolved & shows critical period

Question 3

+AO3 Harlow

Answer 3

Showed deprivation (only having the wire mother) effects the monkey’s exploration, socialisation and confidence

Question 4

+AO3 Bowlby 44 thieves

Answer 4

demonstrates that separation during early years causes delinquency and affectionless psychopathy

Question 5

+AO3 Useful

Answer 5

daycare/hospitals i.e. getting key workers, increasing contact time with parents

Question 6

+AO3 Hazan & Shaver

Answer 6

IWM supported- adult relationships do match childhood (when measured via self-report)

Question 7

-AO3 Testability

Answer 7

Hard to test evolutionary theories (retrospective, post-hoc etc)

Question 8

-AO3 Animal studies

Answer 8

do not apply to humans because our behaviour, attachment styles etc might not be the same

Question 9

-AO3 Robertson and Robertson

Answer 9

don’t need mother care other substitutes would do as long as you get good care (therefore Bowlby may have been wrong)

Question 10

-AO3 Reductionist

Answer 10

Treated Deprivation effects and Privation effects similarly ignoring important differences which means his theory might not be valid about this aspect

Question 11

-AO3

Answer 11

Focused on separation rather than the reasons for separation

Question 12

-AO3 Schaffer and Emerson

Answer 12

27% have joint attachments therefore monotropy may not be as true/vital as Bowlby suggests

Question 13

-AO3 bias? Social Control?

Answer 13

Over focus on mother which ignores other vital attachments and may make it less valid

Question 14

-AO3 Socially sensitive

Answer 14

parent blaming for their children’s relationships etc