L5- Learning Theory Of Attachment

Question 1

What does learning theory suggest?

Answer 1

all behaviour is learned rather than being innate or inherited from parents

Question 2

How do people learn behaviour?

Answer 2

Two types of conditioning:

• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning

Question 3

According to classical conditioning how does an attachment bond develop?

Answer 3

• infant born with certain reflex responses-
  food (unconditioned stimulus) produces reflex of pleasure (unconditioned response)
• The person providing food= neutral stimulus but become associated with the pleasure gained from food.
• person becomes conditioned stimulus that produces pleasure as a conditioned response.

Question 4

How is an attachment bond developed through operant conditioning?

Answer 4

• Strengthens attachment - baby receives positive reinforcement (when behaviour produces a pleasant consequence) for crying when they are hungry as the caregiver feeds them.
• The caregiver receives negative reinforcement (when behaviour removes something unpleasant) for feeding their baby when they cry as feeding the baby makes the crying stop.

Question 5

Strength of learning theory:

Answer 5

+ Learning theory is plausible and scientific as it is founded in established theory- likely association between the provision of needs and the person providing those needs can lead to strong attachments.

Question 6

Weaknesses of learning theory:

Answer 6

Harlow(1959):

• separated infant Rhesus monkeys from mothers and put in cages
• Milk provided by wire mesh ‘surrogate mother’ or one made of soft cloth.
• Monkeys clung to soft cloth ‘mother’, esp when scared even if it did not provide milk —> suggests comfort is more important than food in determining whom a baby will attach to.

Schaffer and Emerson:

• found food not necessary for attachment to form.
• Discovered babies often attached to people who play with them, rather than who feed them.
• 39% of cases baby was more attached to someone else, despite mother feeding them

Explains how attachments form but not why they form:
-Bowlby’s theory of attachment = infants form attachment to caregiver to ensure they are protected.

Learning theory is environmentally reductionist (explains complex human behaviour in an overly simplistic way) :
-infant and caregiver relationship is a very varied, sophisticated and complicated behaviour, and there are many different types of infant and caregiver attachment —> unlikely attachment is merely the result of the caregiver providing the infant with food. Learning theory is environmentally deterministic because it states that early learning determines later attachment behaviours.