Evaluation of Bowlby’s work on attachment

Question 1

Strength

Answer 1

Shaver
-Used ‘love quiz’ questionnaire to test whether early attachments form a template model for later romantic relationships.
-Secure child-parent relationships = believe romantic relationships with trusting, enduring.
-Insecurely = romantic relationships based on obsession, attraction and jealousy of feared intimacy.
-Correlation early and late attachments provided evidence to support Bowlby’s ideas up first relationships form, Internet, working memory model
BUT causation does not equal correlation

Question 2

Weakness

Answer 2

Schaffer and Emmerson (1964)
Longitudinal study
60 Glasvegan babies
- Infants =17% multi attachments (as soon as attachment behaviours shown)
-Four-five months = >50% formed more than 1 attachment
-18 months = 13% one single attachment
Disapproving monotropy
HOWEVER babies protested, more intensely at separation from one particular figure
Attachments arranged in hierarchical order

Question 3

Other explanation

Answer 3

Kagan temperament hypothesis
Bad temperament is the poor relationship with Mum even if she’s loving, leading to poor adult hood romantic relationship

Question 4

Usefulness

Answer 4

Shows importance of early stage attachments
Daycare hours, hospital hours, regular visiting hours for kids

Question 5

Testability

Answer 5

Love quiz questionnaire
Related to recall of childhood relationships, but correlation doesn’t imply causation
Come on love hypothesis
Babies only love mothers because they given food, tested by Harlow and Zimmerman (1959), showed rhesus monkeys attached to mother. I said your base rather than wiremesh mother who gave food

Question 6

Simplicity

Answer 6

Monotropy is a simple explanation
Sensitive periods, and Kagan’s temperament hypothesis simpler