Explanations for attachment- LEARNING THEORY Flashcards
Classical conditioning
- learning through association
- a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that already produces a response such that over time the neutral stimulus produces that behaviour
Operant conditioning
- learning through reinforcement
- if a behaviour is followed by desirable consequence, it becomes more frequent; if followed by undesirable consequence it becomes less frequent
Classical conditioning applied to attachment
Cupboard love theory
Dollard and Miller (1950)
* Food (unconditioned stimulus) leads to a feeling of pleasure (unconditioned response)
* a caregiver starts as a neutral stimulus - person providing food over time becomes associated with food
* NS becomes CS
* once conditioning has taken place the sight of the caregiver produces a conditioned response of pleasure - this is the basis of love
* food leads to the feeling of pleasure
* with time, food and caregiver leads to the feeling of pleasure
Operant conditioning applied to attachment
Dollard and Miller (1950)
* when an infant is fed, this produces a feeling of pleasure (positive reinforcement)
* behaviour that led to being fed (e.g. crying) is more likely to be repeated in future because it was rewarding
* food becomes a primary reinforcer because it supplies the reward
* the person who supplies the food is associated with avoiding discomfort (negative reinforcement) and becomes a secondary reinforcer and a source of reward in his/her own right
* attachment occurs because child seeks person who can supply rewards
Social learning theory
- modelling could be used to explain attachment behaviours
- children observe their parents affectionate behaviour and imitate this
- parents deliberately instruct their children about how to behave in relationships and reward appropraiate attachment behaviours e.g. giving kisses and hugs
Evaluation
- Critcism from Lorenz
- Harlows opposing evidence
-Contrasting ideas to Schaffer and Emerson
- Reductionist approach
- Critcism from Lorenz
- Lorenz set up experiment where he divided a clutch of eggs
- half were hatched with their mother goose in natural environment, and other half hatched in incubator where first moving object seen was Lorenz
- findings showed that incubator group followed Lorenz (eventhough he had not fed them) whereas other group followed mother
- opposing evidence to learning theory as it suggests that young animals dont attach to those who feed them as Lorenz’s geese imprinted/became attached before they were fed
- use of animal study means findings cant be generalised to humans therefore study is low in population validity
- Harlows opposing evidence
- 16 infant monkey deprived from mothers until 8 months old
- presented with wire monkey (pretend monkey made of wire) and a comfort monkey (pretend monkey made of cloth)
- wire monkey had feeding bottle suppling milk
- psychologists measured amount of time each monkey spent withe each mother for 165 days
- found that the monkeys spent more time with comfort monkey e.g. during frightening situations
- goes against learning theory (cupboard love)
- use of animals (monkeys) means poor population validity
-Contrasting ideas to Schaffer and Emerson
- Schaffer and Emerson showed that for many babies primary attachment was not to the person who fed them
- shows that feeding is not the key element to attachment
- evidence suggests that other factors are more important than food in the formation of attachments
- Reductionist approach
- learning theory is reductionist because it ignores the importance of factors such as reciprocity and interactional synchrony in shaping the quality of aatchments
- if attachment developed purely as a result of feeding, there would be no purpose for these complex interactions that include reciprocity and interactional synchrony
- research has showed that these do affect the quality of infant-caregiver attcachment
- this reduces the internal validity of theory as it may not holistically and accurately explain developments of attachments
