Explanation Of Attachment: Learning Theory Flashcards
What does the assumption in the nature vs nurture debate propose?
Behaviour is learned rather than innate (nurture).
How is all behaviour, including attachment, learned?
Through either classical or operant conditioning.
What is ‘Cupboard Love’?
The belief that children learn to love whoever feeds them.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association, where the person who feeds the infant becomes associated with food.
What happens in classical conditioning regarding pleasure?
The feeder eventually produces the pleasure associated with food, making pleasure a conditioned response.
What constitutes the attachment bond in classical conditioning?
The association between an individual and a sense of pleasure.
What is operant conditioning?
A process where a baby performs an action (cries) and receives a reward (food) that reinforces the action.
What is the role of negative reinforcement for parents in operant conditioning?
When they feed the baby, they relieve an undesirable state.
What did Dollars and Miller suggest about hungry infants?
Hungry infants feel uncomfortable, creating a drive to reduce discomfort.
What happens when a baby is fed?
The drive is reduced, producing pleasure (reward).
What is a primary reinforcer?
Food becomes a primary reinforcer.
What is a secondary reinforcer in the context of attachment?
The person supplying the food becomes a secondary reinforcer and a source of reward.
How does attachment occur according to this theory?
The child seeks the person who can supply the reward.
What did Lorenz’s geese and Harlow’s monkeys demonstrate about attachment?
Lorenz’s geese imprinted on the first moving object they saw, and Harlow’s monkeys preferred a soft surrogate over a wire one with milk.
This shows that factors other than feeding are important in attachment formation.
What did Schaffer and Emerson find regarding babies’ main attachment?
They found that for many babies, their main attachment was not to the person who fed them.
This suggests that factors are more important in attachment formation than feeding.
What did Isabella et al discover about interactional synchrony?
Isabella et al found that interactional synchrony predicted attachment quality, and it is not related to food.
This suggests that factors are more important in attachment formation than feeding.
What role might conditioning play in attachment?
While food may not be central to attachment, conditioning may still play a role in a baby’s choice of primary attachment figure.
A caregiver may become associated with warmth and comfort.
What is a counterargument to the learning theory of attachment?
The counterargument is that babies take an active role in the interactions that produce attachment, as shown by innate interactions.
This suggests that learning theory may be inappropriate in explaining any aspect of attachment.
