ATTACHMENTS : explanations

Question 1

Learning Theory: Dollard and Miller (1950)

Answer 1

• Dollard and Miller (1950) proposed that caregiver infant attachments can be explained by learning theory.
• The proposed the idea of ‘cupboard love’ – children learn to become attached to their caregiver because they give them food.
• They theorised that infants learn to associate the caregiver with the feeling of pleasure when they are fed (classical conditioning) and infants are reinforced in the behaviours that will produce these desirable responses from others (e.g. being fed when they cry -

Question 2

Learning Theory: How does it work? (classical)

Answer 2

• This involves learning to associate 2 stimuli together.
  unconditional stimulus: food
  unconditioned response: pleasure
  neutral stimulus: caregiver
  conditioned stimulus: caregiver
  conditioned response: pleasure
• Put simply, the association of caregiver (NS) with food (UCS) causes conditioned response of pleasure for the baby.

Question 3

Learning Theory: How does it work? (operant)

Answer 3

involves learning to repeat a behaviour depending on its consequences.

• Operant conditioning can explain why babies cry for comfort. Crying leads to a response from the caregiver, for example, feeding. As long as the caregiver provides the correct response, crying is reinforced and therefore more likely to be repeated. The baby then directs crying for comfort towards the caregiver who responds with comforting behaviour.
• This reinforcement is a two way process
• At the same time as the baby’s positive reinforcement, the caregiver receives negative reinforcement because the crying stops - escaping from something unpleasant. This interplay of mutual reinforcement strengthens an attachment.

Question 4

Learning theory : Attachment as a secondary drive

Answer 4

• As well as conditioning, learning theory draws on the concept of drive reduction.
• Hunger can be thought of as a primary drive – it’s an innate, biological motivator. We are motivated to eat in order to reduce the hunger drive.
• As caregivers provide food, the primary drive of hunger becomes generalised to them. Attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver satisfaction of the primary drive.
• In simple terms, hunger is a primary drive, attachment is a secondary drive – learned by an association between the caregiver and hunger satisfaction

Question 5

Learning theory: evaluations (strengths)

Answer 5

• **(1) POINT: Learning theory can provide an adequate explanation of how attachments form - in other words, it is plausible. **
• EVIDENCE/EXAMPLE: For example, we do seem to learn in a number of ways through association in real-life (e.g. we associate certain situations with danger when we develop phobias even if that association is irrational). The case of Little Albert shows that classical conditioning is the process by which we learn a variety of behaviours. Little Albert’s case shows that when you combine a loud noise (an unconditioned stimulus) with a neutral stimulus (a rat) after much repetition, this creates a conditioned response (fear of the rat).
• EVALUATION: This is positive because it suggests learning theory may at least play a part in attachment formation.
  • CONTRADICTION POINT: However, this research could be criticized for its severe ethical issuses, specifically its failure to protect little Albert from harm
  • The little Albert study is also a case study. This is a further limitation because we can’t generalize to the wider population, ultimately undermining the vanity of classical conditioning

Question 6

Learning theory: evaluations (negatives)

Answer 6

• (1) POINT: There is strong evidence from Psychological studies that suggests that attachments that form between and infant and their primary caregiver are not based on feeding.
• EVIDENCE/EXAMPLE: For example, in Schaffer and Emerson’s (1964) study, the first attachments formed by 39% of babies was not to the person who carried out physical care, such as feeding and changing the babies nappy. Attachments were more likely to be formed to those individuals who are sensitive and rewarding to the baby and who play with the infant. This means that food may not be the main reinforcer of attachments (as argued by learning theory) but rather it could be the responsiveness from the caregiver that might also be rewarding.
• EVALUATION: This is a weakness as it goes against the Learning Theories assumption that infants are more likely to form attachments with adults who meet their physical needs.
• (2) POINT: Further evidence against learning theory comes from Harlow’s research (1959)
• EXAMPLE/EVIDENCE: He found that when new-born monkeys were separated from their mother after birth and placed in a cage with 2 wire ‘mothers’ where one ‘mother’ consisted of exposed wire and a feeding bottle and the other ‘mother’ was wrapped in a soft cloth but offered no food, the monkey’s spent most of their time with the soft cloth ‘mother’ rather than the mother offering food.
• EVALUATION: This is a weakness because it suggests ‘cupboard love’ is unlikely to explain attachment as the monkeys should have attached to the mother with food but often will become attached to the caregiver offering comfort. This means that counter evidence from a range of animal studies has shown that actually young animals do not necessarily attach to those who feed them.
• (3) Learning theory ignores other factors associated with forming attachments
• Research into early infant-caregiver interactions suggest that the quality of attachment is associated with factors like reciprocity and interactional synchrony (Isabella, 1989). If attachment developed primarily as a result of feeding, there would be no purpose for these complex interactions and we would not expect to find relationships between them and the quality of infant-caregiver attachment.
• With this in mind Learning theory can be critised for being reductionist – it focuses on basic processes (like reinforcement) and is too simplistic to explain complex attachment behaviours.

Question 7

Bowlby’s Evolutionary/Monotropic theory : what?

Answer 7

• John Bowlby rejected learning theory as an explanation for attachment. He didn’t think that just feeding an infant could form a strong primary attachment.
• instead he proposed an evolutionary explanation = that attachment was an innate system that gave a survival advantage.
• Attachment evolved because infants have an innate drive to adapt/survive - carers ensure that young animals stay close to their caregivers and this protects them from dangers.
• BABY’S SEEK PROXIMITY TO CARER FOR SAFETY, not necessarily just food.

Question 8

Bowlby’s Evolutionary/Monotropic theory: ASCMI

Answer 8

A: adaptive (attachments are beneficial to survive as in makes sure a child is kept warm and fed)

S: Social releasers (baby’s pull cute and endearing faces to try and convince caregivers to provide for the child)
- this is due to an innate tendency for adults to care for the child because they activate the mammalian attachment system
- their purpose is to activate the adult attachment system and attract the carers attention and care.

C: critical period (2.5-3 years)
- this is when an attachment can form
- if an attachment is not formed in this time, you will be emotionally intellectually and physically stunted
- Bowlby demonstrated this in his 44 juvenile thieves study, where maternal deprivation was associated with affectionless psychopathy and intellectual disability (more on this in a later lesson).

M: monotropy (can only form one special attachment)
- typically with the mother
- stronger and unique
- Maternal deprivation, which is characterised by a lack of a mother figure during the critical period for attachment formation, results in emotional and intellectual developmental deficits.
- Bowlby believed that the more time a baby spent with ‘the mother; the better. He put forward two principles to clarify this:
* The law of continuity = the more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better the quality of their attachment.
* The law of accumulated separation = stated that the effects of every separation from the mother add up and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose.

I: internal working model (blueprint for other relationships)
- model for what relationships are like in the future.
- A child whose first relationship involves poor treatment will tend to form further poor relationships in which they expect such treatment from others or treat others in that way
- Most importantly, people tend to base their parenting behaviour on their own experiences of being parented. The internal working model therefore explains why children from functional families tend to have similar families themselves.

Question 9

Bowlby’s Evolutionary/Monotropic theory: negative evaluations

Answer 9

• Monotropy is a socially controversial idea AND THERE ARE ECONOMIC EXPLANATIONS because it has major implications for the lifestyle choices others make when their children are young. The law of accumulated separation states that having substantial time apart from a primary attachment figure risks of poor quality attachment that will disadvantage the child in a range of ways later feminist like Erica Berman have pointed out that this place is a terrible burden of responsibility on mothers, setting them up to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in the rest of the child’s life. it also pushes mothers into particular lifestyle choices like not returning to work when the child is born. (Bowlby underestimated the role a father can play, meaning this might now be considered an outdated and sexist view). Schaffer and Emerson’s study also goes against the idea of monotropy because they found but a significant number of babies appeared able to form multiple attachments at the same time, not just to one caregiver.
• sexist and outdated
• impact on the mothers life decisions + more pressure
• Underestimating the role of the father
• there is evidence for the presence of multiple attachments
• However, temperament may be as important as attachment = Bowlby’s approach emphasises the role of attachment in the child’s developing social behaviour. However, a different tradition of child development emphasised the role of temperament. Temperament is the child’s genetically influenced personality. For example, temperament researchers suggest that some babies are more anxious than others and some more sociable than others as a result of their genetic makeup (Kagan, 1982). These temperamental differences explain later social behaviour rather than attachment experiences. Temperament researchers often accuse Bowlby of over-emphasising the importance of a child’s early experiences and the quality of their attachment.
• undermines the role of genes/personality in the formation of attachments
• CONTRAST WITH LEARNING THEORY!! Dollard and Miller say food is important - expand!
  There is criticism for Bowlby’s theory, it fails to acknowledge the impact of food and environment. The alternate explanation by Dollard and Miller in 1950, explains attatchment to be formed via classical conditioning. Where the infant associates the pleasure from food, to the caregiver providing it. This is then maintained via operant conditioning. So it can be argued that Bowlby’s theory may not be as holistic as it could be. On the other hand, Dollard and Miller has very minimal supporting evidence so most psychologists will say that Bowlby’s would be more credible as there is much more supporting evidence.

Question 10

Bowlby’s Evolutionary/Monotropic theory: positive evaluation

Answer 10

• Support for social releases = there is clear evidence to show that cute behaviours are intended to initiate social interaction. Brazleton et al (1975) observed mothers and babies during their interactions, reporting the existence of interactional synchrony. STILL FACE EXPERIMENT: They then extended the study from an observation to an experiment. Primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore their baby signals. Babies initially showed some distress but, when the attachment figures continued to ignore the baby, some responded by curling up and lying motionless. The fact that the children responded so strongly supports bowlby’s idea about the significance of infant social behaviour in eliciting caregiving.
• experiment support the idea about infant social behaviour aiming to influence adults
• Support for internal working models = the idea of internal working models is testable because it predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed on from one generation to the next. Bailey et al (2007) tested this idea. They assessed 99 mothers with one year old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview. The researchers also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mother by observation. it was found the mothers who reported poor attachments to their own parents in the interviews were much more likely to have children classified as poor according to the observations . this supports the idea that, as Boulby said, an internal working model of attachment was being passed through the families.
• research supporting how attachment is passed down generations