Cupboard Love (Attachment) Flashcards
Dollard and Miller 1950
Cupboard Love is based on the learning theory
Infants become attached to their caregiver because they learn that their caregiver provides food
Attachment and classical conditioning
Food is an unconditioned stimulus which produces pleasure, an unconditioned response
As the mother being present every time the baby is fed, the mother becomes associated with the pleasure of being fed
The mother changes from being a neutral stimulus to a conditioned stimulus
Operant conditioning for infants
When a parent feeds a crying baby, the baby is more likely to repeat the crying behaviour to get food - positive reinforcement
The parents feeding behaviour is negatively reinforced by the baby stopping its crying behaviour when fed
Positive Evaluation of Cupboard Love/Learning Theory
Behaviourist principles used to explain attachment are backed up by Pavlov and Skinners well controlled research
Negative Evaluation of Cupboard Love/Learning Theory
Harwlows monkeys rejects cupboard love as infants attached to a cloth mother that provided milk and not wire other that provided milk
Bowlby’s Monotropic Attachment Theory and what he argues infants want to do with their mothers?
Evolutionary explanation of attachment
Infants have innate drive to form an especially strong attachment to their mother (monotropy) and stay in close proximity
Bowlby’s Monotropic Attachment Theory
What do babies instinctively use to attract their caregiver?
Social releasers (crying, smiling) to attract their mothers attention who are biologically programmed to find these behaviours cute or distressing
How do infants use their mothers?
Bowlby’s Monotropic Attachment Theory
As a safe base to explore their environment and show stranger anxiety
How long is Bowlbys critical period and what does a lack of monotropy result in?
Attachments must form in the first 30 months after birth
Failure to achieve this results in negative social, intellectual and emotional consequences for the infant
According to Bowlby what does a childs montropic attach with its mother form?
A schema called an internal working model which is a blueprint for future relationships
Positive Evaluations of Bowlby
His ideas have been developed and applied to early childcare (contact between mothers and babies encouraged in early hours of birth encouraged)
Negative Evaluations of Bowlby
His view that fathers provide and the mothers montoropic role is crucial is a reflection of the 1940s so lacks temporal validity
Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Theory
If child’s monotropic attachment is disrupted during the critical (period of 30) months due to separation from the mother, this deprivation has negative and irreversible consequences
Consequences of Deprivation
- Social development: delinquency and behaviour outside acceptable norms
- Emotional development: psychopathy: unable to show care/empathy or guilt for harm
- Intellectual development: Low IQ
- Continuity Hypothesis: internal working model affected and leads to unsucessful relationships
Positive Evaluations of Maternal Deprivation
Bowlbys 44 thieves study assessed for affectionless psychopathy and MD
14 had affectionless psychopathy
12 had MD
Negative Evaluations of Maternal Deprivation
Bowlbys research is correlational
Deprivation and delinquency could be linked to a third factor such as poverty or criminal relatives
