Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory

Question 1

What is ‘Monotropy’?

Answer 1

• The idea that infants have a inbuilt tendency to make an initial attachment with one attachment figure (usually the mother).

Question 2

What is meat by ‘Innate’?

Answer 2

• A behaviour that is instinctive and does not need to be learned.

Question 3

What is the ‘Internal Working Model’?

Answer 3

• A mental representation that is used as a template for future relationship based on an infant’s primary attachment.

Question 4

What are ‘Social Releasers’?

Answer 4

• It is an Innate behaviour shown by an infant that causes a caregiving response?

Question 5

What is a ‘Critical Period’?

Answer 5

• A specific time period which attachment must form.

Question 6

What is a ‘Sensitive Period’?

Answer 6

• The best time for attachment to form. They can still form outside of this period but it is more difficult.

Question 7

What does the Evolutionary Explanation Propose?

Answer 7

• Proposes that attachment is an innate process which allows a survival advantage - Imprinting an attachment have evolved because they ensure that young aimals say close to caregivers as protection from threats.

Question 8

How does Bowlby’s Monotropic Theory link to the Evolutionary Explanation?

Answer 8

• Bowlby explained that during the stone age era, humans faced the constant danger of predators so attachment therefore evolved through natural selection to ensure that human offspring stayed close to caregivers to guarantee survival.

Question 9

What does Bowlby suggest about Social Releasers?

Answer 9

• Both mother and infant have the innate process to become attached and social releasers are hard wired in the infants to trigger a caregivers response.

Question 10

What were the two principles that Bowlby proposed?

Answer 10

• The Law of Continuity
• The Law of Accumulated Separation.

Question 11

What is the ‘law of Continuity’?

Answer 11

• States that the more constant and predictable a child’s care is, the better quality of attachment.

Question 12

What is the ‘Law of Accumulated Separation’?

Answer 12

• States that every separation from the mother figure adds up.

Question 13

What did Bowlby propose about the Internal Working model?

Answer 13

• As children experience different forms of caregiving, they develop mental structures that influence how they perceive and interact with others in adulthood.
• A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver, will tend to form the expectation that all relationships are like this.