Explanations of attachment Flashcards
What are the two theories that show why we form attachments?
Learning theory of attachment- Dollard and Miller
Monotropic theory of attachment- Bowlby
What is the learning theory of attachment by Dollard and Miller?
States that attachments are the experiences of being fed by caregivers.
So the reason that babies form attachments with their caregivers is that their caregiver feeds them.
The way that attachments are learnt is through classical and operant conditioning.
How is attachment learnt through classical and operant conditioning?
Classical conditioning- The UCS food is paired with the Ns the caregiver. After repeated association the caregiver becomes the conditioned stimulus.
Operant conditioning- positive reinforcement- babies learn that they get food when they stay near their caregiver.
Negative reinforcement- babies learn that they reduce hunger when they stay near the caregiver.
Evaluation of the Learning theory of attachment- Harlow’s Monkeys/
It was a lab study where Harlow separated 8 baby monkeys from their real mothers.
He put each of them in a cage that contained both a wire mother and a fake towel mother.
Half of the monkeys got their food from the wire mother and the other half from the towel mother.
Harlow found that monkeys always preferred the towel mother to the wire mother.
This suggests the attachment if driven by comfort and goes agains the learning theory of attachment.
What is some evaluation of Harlow’s study?
+ Controlled extraneous variables and could establish cause and effect relationships between IV and DV.
- Study could be considered unethical
- Results may lack generalisability
- Apperance of the wire and towel mothers may have acted as a confounding variable.
Evaluation of the Learning theory of attachment.
+ Plenty of opportunities for babies to form an association between their caregivers and getting fed. Therefore this theory is believable.
- It is not supported by Harlows research
- believable does not mean true
What is Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment?
He disagreed with the learning theory of attachment.
So came up with a new theory which stated that babies and caregivers have evolved to form attachments.
Attachments are biologically programmed into both babies and their caregivers. this helps to protect babies from danger and keep them alive.
What are some social releasers that babies show?
Crying
Smiling
Crawling
Following
Caregivers are biologically programmed to respond to these social releasers.
What does monotropy mean?
That babies form attachments with just one special caregiver. A person who provides emotional support for the baby.
What is the critical period in Bowlbys monotropic theory?
The time window during which babies can form attachments. 2 1/2 years.
What is the internal working model in Bowlby’s monotropic theory?
The schema that we develop from our attachment to our main caregiver.
This means that a child’s initial attachment to their caregiver acts as a template that they use in their future relationships with other people.
Evaluation of Bowlyb’s theory- Lorenz and the goslings study.
Lorenz recorded behaviour of two groups of goslings.
One group hatched by their natural mother, and the other group hatched in an incubator with Lorenz being the first moving object the goslings encountered.
He found that the goslings hatched naturally followed their mother, but the goslings hatched in an incubator followed Lorenz.
This study shows that baby geese imprint onto the first person or thing that that they see immediately after birth.
What does pre-programmed mean in relation to Lorenz’s goslings?
That imprinting occurred immediately after birth. This supports the idea that attachments are biologically pre-programmed.
How did the study on goslings show monotrophy and critical period?
The imprinting was irreversible and only formed onto one animal or person.
The study showed the critical period, as imprinting could only happen during a narrow window or no imprinting could occur in the future.
Evaluation of Lorenz’s goslings study
- The results were not completely replicated in later studies- Guitan conducted research into baby chicks and found that attachments were reversible and weren’t monotropic.
- Results may not generalise to humans.
