Bowlbys Theory Of Monotropy A03

Question 1

Mixed evidence for monotropy - limitation

Answer 1

• Bowlby believed that babies generally formed one attachment to their primary caregiver, and that this attachment was special, in some way different from later attachments.
• Only after this attachment was established could a child form multiple attachments. This is not supported by Schaffer and Emerson (1964). As we have reported they found most babies did attach to one person first.
• However, they also found that a significant minority appeared able to form multiple attachments at the same time.
• It is also unclear whether there is something unique about the first attachment.
• Studies of attachment to mother and father tend to show that attachment to the mother is more important in predicting later behaviour (e.g. Suess et al. 1992).
• However, this could simply mean that attachment to the primary attachment figure is just stronger than other attachments, not necessarily that it is different in quality

Question 2

Strength - support for social releasers

Answer 2

• There is clear evidence to show that cute infant behaviours are intended to initiate social interaction and that doing so is important to the baby.
• Brazleton et al. (1975) observed mothers and babies during their interactions, reporting the existence of interactional synchrony. They then extended the study from an observation to an experiment.
• Primary attachment figures were instructed to ignore their babies’ signals - in Bowlby’s terms, to ignore their social releasers.
• The 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 ideas about the
  significance of infant social behaviour in eliciting caregiving.

Question 3

Strength - support for internal working model

Answer 3

• 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 procedure.
• The researchers 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, as Bowlby said, an internal working model of attachment
  was being passed through the families.