Attachment - learning theory Flashcards
What does learning theory propose?
That all behaviour is learnt rather than innate. When babies are born, they are blank and are shaped through their experiences.
Caregivers can become quickly associated with food because they are present when the infant is being fed .
This is called the cupboard love approach because of the emphasis on food.
What does classical conditioning say about attachments?
You have to learn how to form attachment based on association. You are not born with the innate ability to form attachment.
What is the process of classical conditioning in attachment?
The process begins with the food as the unconditioned stimulus.
Learning attachment begins when the baby starts to associate the mum the neutral stimulus with the UCS the baby then begins to associate mum with the unconditioned response of pleasure.
Once conditioning is complete, mum has now become a condition stimulus the baby has learned to attach to mum because she now brings the condition response of pleasure.
What does operant conditioning say about in attachment?
Learning through reinforcement.
They learned to form an attachment who award such as caregiving and food.
How does operant conditioning work in attachment?
When a hungry infant feels discomfort and there is a drive to reduce this discomfort? Food reduces the discomfort and therefore is a primary .
The person feeding the baby is associated with the reward. They then become a secondary reinforce of themselves.
The baby seats the primary caregiver as they are now a source of rewards.
Mum continues to feed the baby due to negative reinforcement she feeds the baby to remove the present experience of the crying.
What does learning theory assume?
That we attach to those who feed us.
What is a limitation of the explanation of learning theory of attachment?
There is empirical evidence which directly challenges the learning theory - Harlow placed monkeys in a cage with two surrogate mothers with the harsh mother providing milk and the cloth mother providing comfort but no milk. - Learn theory of attachment would predict that the monkeys have attached the mother because it provides food however they preferred the cloth mother which challenges the theory this evidence has high and internal validity as the variable for controlled in a lab setting which allowed a cause and effect relationship between the IV and DV - therefore the explanation that food paired with the mother or the mother has a secondary reinforcer is too simplistic the role of contact comfort challenges the validity of the learning theory of attachment.
What is another limitation of the learning theory of attachment? (Alternative explanation)
There is research which offers an alternative explanation of how babies form attachment to caregiver responsiveness - shafa and Emerson observed 60 babies in Glasgow for a year. They found the attachment seem to be formed to responsiveness rather than individuals who provide the care more than half of the infants were not attached to the person primarily involved thus challenging learning theory as it shows infants for attachment to people who do not feed them - suggesting that it is not just food associated with the mother that causes attachment and learning theory takes account of responsiveness which appears to be an important factor - suggesting that learning theory is reductionist as there are other factors such as responsiveness that contribute towards the development of attachment.
