explanations of attatchment Flashcards
What are the 5 aspects of Bowlby’s monotropic theory (evolutionary) of attachment?
Adaptive
Social releasers
Critical period
Monotropy
Internal working model
Summarise Bowlby’s adaptive concept
Give research to support this
Forming attachment helps ensure the survival of the child because if an infant has attachment to caregiver, they are kept safe, given food, and kept warm
Bowlby suggested that attachment occurs after 3 months. But from evolutionary perspective, this is late, important for immediate attachment
Summarise Bowlby’s social releasers concept
Give research to support this
Innate infant behaviours encourage innate nurturing response from an adult e.g. crying
Isabella et al observed 30 mothers and babies, assessing their synchrony, found higher levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
Summarise Bowlby’s critical period concept
Give research to support this
Babies have to form an attachment with their caregiver during a critical period, between birth and 2.5 years (if not>child damaged socially, physically, emotionally)
Lorenz found baby geese followed the first moving object they saw in a critical period
Summarise Bowlby’s monotropy concept
Give research to support this
Infants form one very special, intense attachment with their mother, if mother isn’t available, infants should bond with another substitute
Schaffer and Emmerson found a minority were able to form multiple attachments at the same time
Summarise Bowlby’s internal working model concept
Give research to support this
First attachment provides a template for future relationship expectations, child forms a mental representation of their relationship with their primary caregiver, this predicts relationships in adulthood
Psychologists found that mothers who reported poor attachments to their own parents were more likely to have children classified as poor during observations of quality of attachment
One weakness of Bowlby’s monotrpic theory is that it’s socially sensative
PETF
E: places great deal of pressure on the primary attachment figure, who’s usually the mother, to form sensative, loving, nurturing attachments with their children, or rest of their life is negatively affected
T: consequences e.g. encouraging mothers to stay at home
F: impacts economy negatively
One weakness of Bowlby’s monotrpic theory is that there’s contradictory research about the importance of the critical period
PET
E: Bowlby suggested that if attachment isn’t formed in critical period>LTM consequences.
However, studies found that although it’s less likely that attachments will form after critical period, it’s not impossible e.g. psychologists found 2 twins who lost their mother, were cared by abusive father still made development progress
T: overemphasis on critical period
In the learning theory of attachment, what causes attachment?
What are the 5 key terms? Apply these to attachment
Food aka ‘cupboard love’
UCS- stimulus that produces reflex FOOD
UCR- reflex response PLEASURE
NS- stimulus that doesn’t produce natural response MOTHER
CS- new stimulus, produces learned response MOTHER
CR- learned response PLEASURE
In the learning theory of attachment:
What happens before conditioning?
During?
After?
UCS triggers UCR (food triggers pleasure)
NS becomes associated with the UCS producing UCR (mother becomes associated with the food, producing pleasure)
NS becomes a CS, produces a CR (mother triggers pleasure)
One weakness of the learning theory of attachment is that it’s environmentally deterministic
PET
E: states we are controlled by our learning, assuming whoever feeds us is who we become attached to
T: ignores free will and our ability to choose who we attach to, reducing validity
One weakness of the learning theory of attachment is that it’s reductionist
PET
E: reduces the complex process of attachment to associations with food and responses to crying, ignoring other factors
T: too simplistic, holistic approach that considers a range of factors ‘ influence on attachment would be more realistic
