Explanations of attachment-Learning theory Flashcards
What did Dollard and Miller propose?
That caregiver-infant attachment can be explained by learning theory. Their approach is sometimes called ‘cupboard love’ as it emphasises the importance of food.
How does classical conditioning explain attachment?
Food is the unconditioned stimulus, creating an unconditioned response of pleasure, and the caregiver is the nuetral stimulus which produces no response. When the caregiver provides the food continually, an association is formed between the caregiver and food, meaning the neutral stimulus is the conditioned stimulus which produces the conditioned response of pleasure, which creates love between the caregiver and infant.
How does operant conditioning explain attachment?
It can explain why babies cry for comfort as it leads to a response from the caregiver, which reinforces the crying. This means the baby continues crying to get comfort from the caregiver. The caregiver also gets negative reinforcement from the baby crying, which strengthens the attachment.
What is attachment as a secondary drive?
Sears et al proposed that as well as conditioning, attachments are formed through drive reduction. Hunger is a primary drive and so to reduce this we ear. As caregivers provide food, the drive reduction becomes generalised to them and so attachment is a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and satisfaction of the primary drive.
What are the strengths of learning theory for explaining attachment?
Some elements of conditioning could still be involved such as conditioning with the provision of comfort instead of food.
What are the weaknesses of learning theory for explaining attachment?
There is counter evidence from animal studies which show food is not the reason that attachments are formed.
There is counter evidence from human research such as Schaffer and Emerson’s which showed that even if other carers did most of the feeding, babies still formed primary attachments to their biological mothers.
It ignores other factors associated with forming attachments such as reciprocity and interactional synchrony, meaning that if learning theory was correct they would have no purpose.
There is a newer theory by Hay and Vespo which is based on the Social Learning Theory and suggests that we learn through parents modelling attachment behaviour, such as hugging family members, and rewarding this behaviour.
