Bowlby's Theory of Attachment Flashcards
How does Bowlby explain attachment?
-It is likely that infants are born with an innate tendency to form an attachment that serves ti increase their survival chances
-Developed during stone-age era
-Humans faced constant danger of predators so attachments evolved via process of natural selection to ensure offspring stayed close to caregiver
-Through evolution infants became genetically programmed to behave towards mother in ways that increased survival
-This behaviour has evolved and endured as it promotes survival
-Infants are physically helpless and need adults to care, feed and protect
What are the 5 main strands of Bowlby’s theory?
- Attachment is adaptive
- Monotropy
- Critical Period
- The Internal Working Model
- Social Releasers
Explain how ‘attachment is adaptive’
-Attachment behaviour promotes survival as it ensures safety and food for offspring
-Makes it adaptive as enables individuals with this characteristic to be better adapted to the environment
-More likely to survive and reproduce themselves
What is monotropy?
-Bowlby claims infants need one special attachment, qualitatively different from others
-This intense emotional relationship forms the basis of internal working model and underlies ability to experience deep feelings
-Infants becomes most strongly attached to person who interacts best - responds most sensitively social releasers
-This person becomes infant’s primary caregiver and plays special role in emotional development
What is the critical period?
-Bowlby claimed if attachment does not take place before age 2.5 then not possible thereafter.
-He borrowed concept from work of Lorenz
What is the internal working model?
-Infants have many mental models (schema) in their environment
-This model demonstrates expectations about other relationships
-These will serve as a template for all future relationships
What are social releasers?
-Bowlby says attachment must be innate and reciprocal
-The infant innately elicts caregiving from its mother-figure by a means of social releasers
-Caregivers are innately programmed to respond to these social releasers - people feel uncomfortable when they hear an infant cry
-It is a mechanism that has evolved to maximise survival by keeping caregiver close
What are 2 strengths of Bowlby’s theory?
Support for social releasers:
-Brazelton observed mothers and babies during interactions, reporting existence of interactional synchrony
-Primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore their babies signals - social releasers
-The babies initially showed some distress but then attachment figures continued to ignore them, some responded by curling up and lying motionless
The fact children responded so strongly supports Bowlby’s ideas about significance of infant social behaviour by eliciting caregiving
Support for internal working model from continuity hypothesis:
-Follows theory that we would expect securely attached infants to develop different social and emotional relationships in comparison to those insecurely attached
-Continuity hypothesis is the idea that emotionally secure infants go on to be emotionally secure adults
-Minnesota Longitudinal Study showed this in which several studies showed that in adolescence children who were more securely attached in infancy were more socially skilled, higher in self-esteem, more popular, confident and more prepared to act on their initiative then less securely attached children.
This supports Bowlby’s idea that an internal working model of attachment was being passed through families
What are 2 limitations of Bowlby’s theory?
Lacks historical validity:
-Proposed original theory in 1951- over 70 years ago
-A period with traditional gender roles with mothers staying at home to raise children, fathers at work
-Bowlby saw fathers as minor attachment figures, not of any direct emotional importance for baby, main role to provide financial and emotional support to mother
-Schaffer and Emerson’s findings suggest fathers are attachment figures, children prefer their style of play as more stimulating and unpredictable
Therefore, Bowlby’s theory may not apply to todays society where the father is a key attachment figure in the child’s life
A sensitive period rather than a critical one:
-Critical period concept may be too strong
-Studies into adoption show children can form successful attachment bonds even though critical period may have long passed
e.g. Koluchova reported the case of Czech twin boys isolated from age 18months until 7yrs, subsequently they were looked after by 2 loving adults and appeared to fully recover
Cases like this show the period may be ‘sensitive’ rather than ‘critical’. This would lead us to believe children might well be able to form attachments at any time if opportunity presents itself and with right kind of care, although later the attachment the less successful it tends to be.
