Explanations of attachment: Bowlby's theory Flashcards
Why did Bowlby come up with his Monotropic theory?
- Rejected learning theory
- Believed attachment was an evolutionary explanation - that attachment was an innate system that gives us a survival advantage
What is monotropy?
- Bowlby placed great emphasis on a child’s attachment to one particular caregiver
- believed attachment to this care giver was different and more important than others
Put forward two principles to clarify this:
- law of continuity stated that the more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better the quality of their attachment
- The law of accumulated separation stated that the effects of every separation from the other adds up ‘and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose’ (Bowlby 1975)
What are social releasers and the critical period?
- Babies are born with innate ‘cute’ behaviours like smiling, cooing and gripping that encourage attention from adults
- he called them social releasers because their purpose is to activate adult social interaction and so make an adult attaché to the baby
- recognised the process was reciprocal - both mother and baby are ‘hard wired’ to become attached
- Interplay between baby and adult builds the relationship between baby and caregiver, beginning in the early weeks of life
Critical period:
- around 6 months when the infant attachment system is active
- Bowlby viewed this as more of a ‘sensitive period’
- a child is maximally sensitive at 6 months and this extends up to the age of 2
- if an attachment is not formed in this time, a child will find it much harder to form one later
What is the internal working model?
- child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary attachment figure
- this is called the internal working model because it serves as a model for what relationships are like
- Childs first loving relationship with reliable caregiver will form an expectation for all future relationships to be the same - therefore will bring these qualities to future relationships
- However, if a child whose first relationship involves poor treatment will tend to form further poor relationships in which they expect such treatment from others and/or treat others in that same way
- Most importantly the internal working model affects the Childs later ability to be a parent themselves
- people tend to base their parenting behaviour on their own experiences of being parented - this explains why children from functional families tend to have similar families themselves
Evaluation points for Bowlby’s theory
validity of monotropy challenged:
- lacks validity
Schaffer and Emerson found that although most babies did attach to one person at first, a significant minority formed multiple attachments at the same time
- although the first attachment does appear to have a strong influence later on in life - not necessarily different in quality from the Childs other attachments
- For example, other attachments to family members provide all the same key qualities (emotional support, a safe base etc)
This means that Bowlby may be incorrect that there is a unique quality and importance to the child’s primary attachment
Support for social releasers:
- clear evidence that cute behaviours are designed to elicit interaction from caregivers
- Brazelton et all observed babies trigger interactions with adult using social releasers
- the researchers then instructed babies primary attachment figures to ignore their babies social releasers
- they found that babies became increasingly distressed and some eventually curled up and lay motionless
This illustrates the role of social releasers in emotional development and suggests that they are important in the process of attachment development
Support for internal working model:
- predicts patterns will be passed from one generation to the next
- Heidi Bailey et al studied 99 mothers and 1 year old babies
- researchers measured mothers attachment to their own primary attatchment figure (parents) and also assessed the attachment quality of the babies
- they found that mothers with poor attachment to their own primary attachment figures were more likely to have poorly attached babies
This supports Bowlby’s idea that mothers ability to form attachments to their babies is influenced by their internal working models (which in turn comes from their own early attachment experiences)
Counterpoint:
- probably other important influences on social development
psychologists believe genetic differences in anxiety and sociability affect social behaviour in both babies and adults - these differences could also have an impact on their parenting ability (Kornienko 2016)
This means that Bowlby may have overstated the importance of the internal working model in social behaviour and parenting at the expense of other factors
Feminist concerns:
- beliefs using this theory are set up to blame the mother for anything that goes wrong with the child in the future
- also believe that mothers who work may be negatively affecting their Childs emotional development
- gives people an excuse to restrict mothers activities, for example returning to work
