attachment -> bowlby's theory Flashcards
What did Bowlby propose?
Monotropic Theory of Attachment (1969)
What did Bowlby’s monotropic theory propose?
Human infants have an innate tendency to form attachment to their primary caregiver, most often their mother.
What kind of theory is Bowlby’s?
Takes on an evolutionary perspective (behaviour is innate not learnt)
What does the evolutionary theory propose?
Children are born with an innate tendency to form attachments with their parents in order to increase chances of survival (behaviour is innate not learnt)
How has attachment led to survival?
Babies that attached to their mother survived as the mothers cared for them (because human babies are altricial) and those babies that did not attach did not survive.
What do secondary attachments provide?
Important safety nets and are important for psychological and social development
What two principles did Bowlby put forward to clarify his theory?
- The Law of Continuity
- The Law of Accumulated Separation
What is the law of continuity?
The more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better quality of their attachment.
What is the law of accumulated separation?
The effects of every separation from the mother add up and the ‘safety dose is therefore a zero dose’
What do strong and weak attachments in infancy lead to?
strong attachments in infancy = socially and emotionally competent later
weak attachments in infancy = social and emotional difficulties later
What are the five stages of Bowlby’s theory of attachment?
- Adaptive
- Social releasers
- Critical period
- Monotropy
- Internal Working Model
What does ‘Adaptive’ refer to?
Attachment behaviours evolved because they have an important survival function. This means they give out species an ‘adaptive advantage’, making us more likely to survive.
What are social releasers?
Babies are born with a set of innate cute behaviours that encourage attention from adults
What is the purpose of social releasers?
To ‘unlock’ the innate tendency of adults to care for them, and therefore makes the adult attach to the baby.
What are some examples of social releasers?
Physical -> typical ‘baby face’ features that make babies appear cute such as big eyes and a button nose
Behavioural -> crying, cooing and smiling to get attention
What is the critical period?
Infants must form an attachment with their caregiver during the critical period of between 6 months and 3 years
What would happen if an attachment isn’t formed in the critical period?
The child will find it much harder to form attachment later and can cause social, emotional, intellectual damages
Evaluation: Validity of monotropy challenged -> limitation
- Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that although most babies did attach to one person at first, a significant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time (65% mother only, 30% mother and another, 3% father only)
- Although the first attachment does appear to have a particularly strong influence and influences later behaviour, this may simply mean it is stronger, not necessarily different in quality from the child’s other attachments.
- For example, other attachments to family members provide all the same key qualities (emotional support, a safe base ect.)
Evaluation: Support for internal working model -> strength
- There is evidence for the internal working model through clinical research.
- Bailey (2007) assessed 99 mothers on their attachment to their infants and their attachment to their own mothers.
- They found that mothers who reported poor attachment to their parents (their own primary attachment figure) had less secure attachments with their own babies. - This supports Bowlby’s idea that the mothers’ ability to form attachments to their babies is influenced by their internal working models (which in turn comes from their own early attachment experiences).
Counterpoint: the continuity hypothesis
- The continuity hypothesis that the quality can predict those infant’s later adult relationship styles due to the development of the internal working model
- This is highly deterministic; people like to think that they have complete conscious control over their relationships, including responsibility for the success of relationships, not that this is set in infancy
Evaluation: Support for the role of social releasers -> strength
- There is clear evidence that cute baby behaviours are designed to elicit interactions from caregivers. T. Berry Brazelton et al. (1975) observed babies trigger interactions with adults using social releasers.
- The researchers then instructed the babies’ primary attachment figures to ignore their babies’ social releasers.
- Babies (who were previously shown to be normally responsive) became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless.
- This illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests they are important in the process of attachment behaviour.
- This illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests that they are important in the process of attachment development.
