Explanation of attachment: Bowlby's theory

Question 1

Who inspired Bowlby’s theory of attachment?

Answer 1

Lorenz’s research on imprinting

Question 2

What was the name of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 2

The evolutionary theory

Question 3

What did the evolutionary theory state?

Answer 3

That attachment is an innate process that serves as an important evolutionary function.

Question 4

What is the purpose and function of attachment?

Answer 4

to keep the baby close to the caregiver for safety and protection, which allows the child to explore and develop with a secure base.

Question 5

What are social releasers?

Answer 5

A set of innate behaviors that encourage attention from adults which in turn makes the adults love the baby.

Question 6

Give some examples of social releasers

Answer 6

Smiling, cooing, gripping, crying

Question 7

Bowlby believed that attachment was an innate process but what other type of process did he also beleived contributes to attachment?

Answer 7

reciprocal process

Question 8

What are the three key principles to the evolutionary theory?

Answer 8

• Monotropy
• Critical period
• Internal working model

Question 9

What did Bowlby mean by the term monotropy?

Answer 9

It was the idea that a child makes only one primary attachment figure. This attachment is more important than all the others (which are known as secondary attachment figures).

Question 10

According to Bowlby who is most likely to be the primary attachment figure?

Answer 10

The mother

Question 11

What is the law of continuity?

Answer 11

It is the idea that the more constant and predictable the child’s care is, the better quality the attachment

Question 12

What is the law of accumulated separation?

Answer 12

The idea that the effects of every separation from the primary caregiver add up ‘and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose’

Question 13

What are the two laws that affected the process of monotropy?

Answer 13

The law of continuity

The law of accumulation separation

Question 14

What is the critical period?

Answer 14

A time period where infants have the innate drive to become attached

Question 15

When is the critical period?

Answer 15

2¹/₂-3 years

Question 16

What will happen if the child fails to attach in the critical period?

Answer 16

Those children will have difficulties forming attachments in later life.

Question 17

What determines weather the infant attaches or not during the critical period?

Answer 17

The sensitivity of the primary caregiver

Question 18

What is the internal working model?

Answer 18

It is a template for future relationships that is based on the infants primary attachment figure.

Question 19

What aspects does the infant build in the model from the first attachment?

Answer 19

They build a model of themselves as lovable or not, a model of the parent figure as trustworthy or not and a model of the relationship between the two.

Question 20

What are the 4 headings towards the evaluation of Bowlby’s theory?

Answer 20

Is attachment adaptive?

A sensitive period rather than ‘critical’

Multiple attachments Vs Monotropy

Continuity hypothesis

Question 21

Explain the argument for ‘is attachment adaptive?’

Answer 21

P= Attachment is undoubtably important in regards to emotional development but may not be critical for survival like Bowlby claims.

E= For example, Bowlby suggested that attachment in an infant does not develop until the infant is older than three months. However, this is too late to protect infants because it is vital for the infants survival to become attached as soon as they are born.

E= This contradicts Bowlby’s belief that infants make attachments to their caregivers for survival because the age of which they attach is too late compared to when they actually need protection.

C= However, the age of attachment might be linked to a species life. For example, human infants do not need to cling on from early ages (unlike monkeys) as their mothers can carry them, but when they begin to crawl attachment is vital and this is when attachment develops in humans which supports the view that it is adaptive.

Question 22

Explain the argument for ‘A sensitive period rather than critical’

Answer 22

P= The research group by Rutter et al conducted a study on children who failed to form attachments during the critical period.

E= According to Bowlby it should not be possible for the child to form attachments beyond this period.

E= The results from this study proved this to be true but only to a certain extent.

C= It is not entirely impossible for the infant to form attachments after the critical period and so researchers have renamed it the “sensitive period”.

Question 23

Explain the argument for ‘Multiple attachments Vs Monotropy’

Answer 23

P= There is research evidence that supports Bowlby’s theory of monotropy.

E= For example, Grossman and Grossman suggested that the father played a key role as a secondary attachment figure and are important in regards to the social development of the child.

E=This supports Bowlby’s theory of monotropy because it implies that their is only one primary attachment figure, but secondary attachment figures are still important for the child’s development.

Question 24

Explain the argument for ‘Continuity hypothesis’

Answer 24

P= Their is research evidence that supports Bowlby’s theory of the internal working model.

E= For example the Minnesota-parent-child study found that infants who were classified as securely attached were the highest rated for social competence later in childhood, were less isolated, more popular and more empathetic.

E= This directly supports the continuity hypothesis because their is a link between early and later attachments.