attachment - learning theory Flashcards
What is meant by cupboard love?
Behaviourist explanation of attachment that suggests attachments develop through classical and/or operant conditioning.
The infant attaches to the caregiver who provides the food.
What is classical conditioning in attachment?
Involves learning through associating a stimulus with a response.
In this case, as food naturally gives pleasure, food is an unconditioned stimulus, leading to the unconditioned pleasure response.
The caregiver (neutral stimulus) gives the infant food, and the infant learns to associate the caregiver with the food- so the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus. The conditioned response is the pleasure of being fed, with is now ‘paired’ with the caregiver.
What is operant conditioning in attachment?
Involves learning through rewards/punishments.
By crying, infants produce a response from the caregiver of caring and comforting them, so learns that by crying, the caregiver will care for them.
From the caregiver’s perspective, comforting the infant leads to the crying stopping, so this behaviour will be repeated by the caregiver (this is negative reinforcement- continuing a behaviour to avoid a negative outcome).
What is meant by a ‘secondary drive’?
Primary drives are instinctive, such as eating for hunger, sleeping for tiredness etc. They are based on a biological need.
Secondary drives such as attachment develop due to a learnt process, in which they are associated with the satisfaction of a primary drive (food).
Evaluate learning theory as a theory of attachment - Lorenz & Harlow
Lorenz and Harlow’s research weakens learning theory.
Lorenz’s goslings imprinted on him before he fed them, and Harlow’s monkeys preferred a cloth mother (which didn’t have a milk bottle) over a wire mother (which did).
This suggests food is not the primary reason for attachment.
