attachment -> explanations of attachment: learning theory

Question 1

What is the learning theory?

Answer 1

Explains how infants learn to become attached to their primary caregiver through the process of either classical conditioning or operant conditioning

Question 2

Who suggested attachment is a learned behaviour?

Answer 2

Dollard and Miller (1950)

Question 3

What is the learning theory sometimes referred to as?

Answer 3

The ‘cupboard love’ theory

Question 4

What is the ‘cupboard love’ theory?

Answer 4

Argues that infants become attached to their caregiver because they learn that their caregiver provides food
- The main principles of this explanation for attachment focuses on food

Question 5

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 5

Process of learning by associating two stimuli together to condition a response

Question 6

How does classical conditioning lead to an attachment?

Answer 6

1) Before conditioning, the food is an unconditioned stimulus which produces an unconditioned response (reflex) in the child - relief from hunger/ pleasure
2) Before conditioning, the caregiver is a neutral stimulus, who produces no conditioned response at all from the child
3) During conditioning, the child associates the caregiver who feeds them (NS) with the food (the UCS)
4) Through many repeated pairing, the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus who is associated with the pleasure from feeding
- this results in the caregiver eliciting a conditioned response (relief from hunger) from the child and the formation of an attachment

Question 7

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 7

Learning from the consequences of behaviour and patterns of reinforcement

Question 8

What are the two types of reinforcement?

Answer 8

Positive reinforcement = something that rewards behaviour
Negative reinforcement = when a response removes something unpleasant

Question 9

What is an example of positive and negative reinforcement?

Answer 9

Positive: e.g. crying causes the caregiver to feed the infant, so the crying behaviour is useful as it reduces hunger
Negative: e.g. the sound of the baby crying for the mother who will attempt to stop crying by feeding and comforting the baby. Parent learns to cuddle and feed the baby to stop it crying

Question 10

What comforting behaviour does the caregiver respond to the baby’s crying for comfort?

Answer 10

Comforting ‘social suppressor’ behaviour

Question 11

What kind of process is operant conditioning?

Answer 11

A two-way process
- At the same time as the baby is reinforced for crying, the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops
- escaping from something unpleasant is reinforcing

Question 12

What does the interplay of mutual reinforcement do?

Answer 12

Mutual reinforcement strengthens an attachment

Question 13

What concept does learning theory draw from?

Answer 13

Drive reduction

Question 14

What kind of drive is hunger and what is its reinforcer?

Answer 14

Primary drive as it is an innate, biological motivator
- Food is termed the primary reinforcer

Question 15

What did Sears et.al (1957) find?

Answer 15

As the caregiver provides food to relieve hunger, this feeling is generalised to them

Question 16

What kind of drive is attachment and what is its reinforcer?

Answer 16

Attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by an association between a caregiver and the satisfaction of hunger (a primary drive)
- the caregiver who provided the food is the secondary reinforcer

Question 17

Evaluation: There is counter-evidence from animal research -> limitation

Answer 17

• For example, Harlows research on deprived monkeys demonstrated attachment behaviour towards a soft surrogate mother which provided no food, in preference to a wire one which provided food
• This shows that baby monkeys do not form attachments based on the presence of food alone and prefer contact comfort
• These findings go against the learning theory ‘cupboard love’ explanation of attachment and suggest alternative processes may have been ignored
• Learning theory is also refuted by research from Lorenz who found that upon hatching, baby geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw regardless of whether this object was associated with food
• Therefore, imprinting appears to be innate
• This shows that non-human animals demonstrate some in-born attachment behaviours to aid survival which goes against the idea that we ‘learn’ to attach to a caregiver because they feed us
• This shows that factors other than association with food are important in the formation of attachments

Question 18

Evaluation: Learning theory applied to human attachment behaviour is seen as environmentally reductionist

Answer 18

• The learning theory explanation suggests that attachments are the results of learning through classical and/or operant conditioning
• Behaviourists argue that the complex interactions between the caregivers and infants are the result of simplistic stimulus associations, learnt responses and patterns of reinforcement
• Consequently, such theories are reductionist as they reduce a complex behaviour, the formation of an attachment between the infant and caregivers, to a stimulus response association

Question 19

Evaluation: Some conditioning may be involved in attachment behaviour -> strength

Answer 19

• Learning theory has face validity; it makes intuitive sense that babies cry more when they learn crying gains them attention and, ultimately, food
• It seems unlikely that association with food plays a central role in attachment, but conditioning may still play a role
• For example, a baby may associate feeling warm and comfortable with the presence of a particular adult, and this may influence the baby’s choice of their main attachment figure
• This means that learning theory may still be useful in understanding the development of attachments