Bowlby's Monotropic Theory Flashcards
What did Bowlby propose?
Proposed an evolutionary explanation that attachment was innate and gave a survival advantage. Imprinting an attachment evolved because they ensure that young stay close to their caregiver to protect them from harm.
What is monotropy?
Bowlby focused on a child’s attachment to one particular caregiver (the primary attachment figure) and believe that this attachment was more important than others. Bowlby called this person ‘the mother’but it need not be the biological mother.
What two laws did Bowlby propose?
-The law of continuity which stated that the more constant and predictable a childcare, the better the quality of their attachment
-The law of accumulated separation which stated that the effects of every separation from the mother add up (the best outcome is zero separation)
Explain what is meant by monotropic theory (2 marks)
We form one attachment and that attachment is the most important.
What are social releases?
Babies are born with a set of social releasers which are innate behaviours like smiling, cooing and gripping. These encourage attention from adults and their function is to make the adult feel love towards the baby and thus activate the adult attachment system.
Attachment is reciprocal, both mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached. The interplay between infant and adult attachment systems gradually builds the relationship between infant and caregiver and begins in the early weeks of life.
What is a critical period?
Bowlby proposed that there is a critical period of around two years when the infant attachment system is active (although he viewed this more as a sensitive period). A child is maximally sensitive at the age of two, and if an attachment is not formed by this time, they will find it much more difficult to form one later.
Describe the internal working model.
Bowlby proposed that a child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver. He called us an internal working model because it serves as a model for what relationships are like and has a powerful effect on the nature of the child’s future relationships . The internal working model also affects the child’s future ability to be a parent themselves. People tend to base their parenting behaviour on their own experiences of being parented. This explains why children from functional families tend to have functional families themselves.
A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable car will tend to form an expectation that all relationships are as loving and reliable, and they will bring these qualities to future relationships e.g. they will likely become loving and reliable parents.
Evaluation point 1:
(-) Counter evidence for monotropy
Bowlby’s view that a child formed one special attachment is not supported by Schaffer and Emerson. Although Schaffer and Emerson found that although most children did form a primary attachment initially, some children did not seem to form multiple attachments immediately. This suggests that some babies do not initially form one primary attachment as Bowlby suggests (cannot be generalised to all).
Evaluation point 2:
(+) support for social releasers
There is clear evidence to show that cute infant behaviours are intended to initiate social interaction and not doing so it’s important to the baby. Brazleton et al (1975) observed mothers and babies during their interactions and found evidence of interactional synchrony. They later instructed the primary attachment figures to ignore their baby social releasers. The babies initially showed so distressed but, when the attachment figures continued to ignore the baby, someone responded by killing up and lying motionless. The fact that the children responded so strongly supports Bowlby’s ideas about the significance of social releases in eliciting caregiving/forming attachment.
Evaluation point 3:
(+) support for internal working models
Baily et al (2007) assessed 99 mothers with one year-old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure. They also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mothers by observation. It was found that 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 the internal working model has a strong effect on the nature of the child’s future relationships and also affects the child’s future ability to be apparent themselves.
Evaluation point 4:
(-) monotropy is socially sensitive
Monotropy is a controversial idea because it has major implications for the life choices mothers make when their children are young. It’s address women should quit their job and not work for two years as if women work they are responsible for anything bad that happens in their child’s life. With most women having/choosing to work this suggests that the theory may lack temporal validity as most mothers now work but children go onto develop normal attachment. This suggests the internal working model is incorrect.
Evaluation point 6:
(-) temperament may be as important as attachment
Kagan (1982) suggested that temperamental differences in infants (e.g. who are more anxious) actually a better explanation of later behaviour. This implies that the internal working model may not be the major factor in determining future relationships.
