Learning theory Expl of attachment Flashcards
What are the two theories which explain why we form attachments ?
the learning theory of attachment and bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment
What does the learning theory of attachment say about how the baby forms an attachment with a caregiver ?
Whenever the caregiver gives the babies food they will feel happy. Through this repeated experience of being fed by the caregiver, they will learn to associate their caregiver with food. They will then feel happy whenever they see their caregiver
What is the reason attachments are formed in the learning theory ?
Attachment are formed through the experience of the careigver feeding the baby and the baby learns and associate careigivers with feeding them. Babies really like food
How do babies associate their caregivers with food ?
This is learn through conditioning being classical and operant conditioning
From the day babies are born what do they love ?
They love food
In conditioning, what type of stimulus is the food and the caregiver ? and why
The food is the uncoditioned stimulus and the caregiver is the neutral stimulus. The foos is an US because being given food to the baby gives them pleasure and they do not learn it. The caregiver is a neutral stimulus as it is something that produces no response from the baby
Over time as the caregivers feed the baby what will the baby start to do and feel ?
The babies will start to associate their caregivers with being fed. They begin to feel the same happy feeling they get towards food instead to the caregiver also even without food.
Over time, what will happen to the neutral stimulus such as the caregiver ?
they will become a conditioned stimulus and the baby will produce a conditioned respone from seeing the caregiver in being happy
What is classical conditioning ?
This is when a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus through the repeated learned association between the unconditioned stimulus and the neutral stimulus.
What is operant conditioning ?
This is when we learn an association between our actions and the outcome of our actions
When the outcome of our actions leads us to repeating the action what is this called ?
This is called reinforced behaviour
What are the two types of reinforcement and what are they ?
Positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when we learnt to repeat a behaviour to get a rewarding outcome. Negative reinforcment is when we learnt to repeat a behaviour to avoid an unrewarding outcome
How does positive reinforcement relate to forming attachments ?
For instance, as the babies love food they will learn to assoicate staying near their caregiver with the outcome getting fed when hungry. The action of staying close to the caregiver is positively reinforced
How does negative reinforcement ?
For instance, as babies love food they will learn that staying far from the caregiver will not give them food and they feel the outcome of negative feelings of hunger so they will stay close to the caregiver. Therefore staying close to the caregiver is negatively reinforced
What did Harlow try to find out in 1959 ? and what did he not agree with
He wanted to find out whether babies would choose parents who provided food or those who provided comfort. He did not agree with the learning theory
How did Harlow conduct the study
He conducted a laboratory experiment where he raised 8 baby moneys with two fake mothers. One mother was a fake wired mother and the other was a fake towel mother.
For four moneys the wired mother would provide milk and the other four moneys the towel mother would provide milk
What was the IV and DV of Harlow experiment ?
The IV was the type of mother providing the milk and the DV is the amount of time spent on each mother
If the learning theory was true, what should happen in Harlow study ?
The monkeys should always go to the mother providing food no matter if it is the wire mother or the towel mother who provided comfort
What were the findings of the study ?
Harlow found that the baby monkeys preferef the towel mother regardless of whether she was providing milk. They would only apporach the wire mother when they need food but spent most of the time on the towel mother as it provided comfort.
When there was loud noise introduced to the monkey who would they cling to ?
They would cling on to the towel mother
What is the conclusion of the Harlow study ?
Attachment in monkey can be formed by comfort not food
What is one strength of Harlow’s study ?
It was a laboratory experiment and so it was well controlled. He could carefully control the living conditions and the amount of milk given to the monkeys which are extraneous variables. He was able to control all the extraneous variables. He could establish a cause and effect relationship
What is one limitation of Harlow study ?
Both mothers had different looking heads and reason why the baby preferred the towel mother may not be because of the towel material. The appareance of the mother is a confounding variables as it can affect the dependent variable and indepedent variable
What is another limitation of Harlow study ?
The study was done on monkeys not human babis and so it may lack generalisability and the results may not tell us much about how humans form attachments. we will not know monkeys form attachments the same as humans. Not repreentative to human babies
What is a third limitation of Harlow study ?
It is unethical as the sepeartion of the baby monkey and the mother may have been emotionally distressing to both baby monkey and mother. Monkeys can not also give informed consent to take part in the study. May of caused long term psychological harm
What are the strenght of the learning theory of attachment ?
There is researchh support from Dollard and Miller . He found in the first year of the babies life the baby will get fed over 2000 times by their caregivers and gives plent of time for the baby to learn associations and it is believable.
What are the wekanesses of the learning theory of attachment
Harlow study suggested attachments can be formed through comfort and not food. Does not support the theory of attachment
What is another weakness of the learning theory ?
It lacks real life applications. There are findings in Israel in communial environments metapelets who are foster mothers and provide food do not spend quality time with the babies as they have many other babies to look after as well. The mother has to go to work during the day but spends quality time to the baby provding love and comfort. Despite being fed by the metapelets, the babies attach to the mothers who do not feed them but provide love and comfort
