1. Attachment: specification
• Explanations of attachment: learning theory
and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The
concepts of a critical period and an internal
working model.
2. Explanations of attachment
• Lorenz’s animal studies
identified attachment in
geese and suggested that
there was a critical period
for an attachment to be
made.
• Harlow’s research tested
the hypothesis that contact
comfort was important for
attachment.
3. Explanations of attachment
• Harlow’s research also tested
one popular explanation for
attachment based on the
behaviourist approach that
infants learnt to make an
attachment to the person
who fed them.
5. Attachment: learning theory
• Dollard and Millar (1950) claimed that infants
learnt to make an attachment to the person who
feeds them.
• According to Dollard and Millar (1950) an infant
forms an attachment to the person that feeds
them through classical and operant conditioning.
• The infant learns to associate the person who
feeds them with the pleasure that comes from
being fed.
6. Attachment: learning theory
• Through the process of classical conditioning
the infant finds contact with the mother
comforting even when not being fed.
7.
8. Attachment: learning theory
• The infant learns that certain behaviours,
crying and smiling, produce a pleasurable
response from caregivers.
• Through the process of operant conditioning
they learn to repeat these behaviours to get
the things they need.
9. Attachment: operant conditioning
• Infant is hungry and cries.
• The caregiver responds by feeding the infant.
• This acts as a reward for crying.
• The infant learns that crying will be rewarded by food.
• Crying to get food is positively reinforced.
10. Attachment: secondary drive
• According to learning theory some behaviour is
motivated by drive reduction.
• Basic biological needs are thought to drive some
behaviour.
• Food is a basic biological need.
• Hunger drives eating behaviour.
• Eating reduces the hunger drive.
• Hunger is the primary driver of attachment behaviour.
11. Attachment: secondary drive
• The person who feeds the infant is
associated with hunger reduction and the
pleasure of being full and becomes a
secondary drive in attachment behaviour.
12. Learning theory: strengths
• There is evidence that animals learn through classical
and operant conditioning.
• Pavlov.
• Skinner.
• Dollard and Miller calculated that a baby is fed 2000
times in their first year.
• They argued that this was the basis for learning to
associate the person who fed them with the reduction
of hunger and the pleasure of feeling full.
13. Learning theory: limitations
• Many animal studies of attachment have found that
food and feeding is not the basis for attachment.
• Lorenz found baby geese imprinted on the first large
moving object they saw not the animal who fed
them.
• Harlow found that baby monkey’s made an
attachment to a cloth covered mother monkey not a
wire covered mother monkey with a milk bottle that
fed it.
14. Learning theory: limitations
• Schaffer & Emmerson found that infants made an
attachment to the biological mother even if she did
not feed them.
• Fox (1977) found that infants in Israel made a strong
attachment to their biological mothers even if they
were fed by professional caregivers.
• There are other better explanations for attachment.
17. JOHN BOWLBY (1907-1990)
• Child Psychiatrist & Psychoanalyst.
• Bowlby believed that the earliest bonds
formed by children with their caregivers
have a tremendous impact that continues
throughout life.
• According to Bowlby, attachment also
serves to keep the infant close to the
mother, thus improving the child's chances
of survival.
18. Bowlby’s evolutionary explanation.
According to evolutionary theory behaviour and
physical characteristics change and evolve with each
generation.
Natural selection is the way this happens.
Many young are produced, not all can survive.
The young with the best chance of survival will be those
with characteristics that help them to cope with the
demands of the environment that they live in.
19. Our early ancestors evolved
an attachment system in
order to survive.
This is survival of the fittest.
The survivors will pass on
these characteristics to
their offspring, and so on.
20. Bowlby was very influenced by the work
of ethologists, people who study animal
behaviour, especially Konrad Lorenz and
his work on imprinting.
21. According to Lorenz imprinting is the evolved, innate
ability of animals to make an attachment to the first thing
they see. This is usually their biological mother. This
provides protection and allows them to learn behaviour
important for survival.
Bowlby uses the word attachment instead of
imprinting.
22. Bowlby’s theory: monotropy
• Bowlby argued that babies and infants have an
innate inborn instinct to make an attachment to a
single caregiver or attachment figure.
• This attachment was different and more important
than any other attachments the child might make.
• Problems in making this type of attachment had
serious consequences for the emotional
development of the child.
23. Bowlby’s theory: critical period
• Bowlby thought attachment went through a number
of stages.
• He took Lorenz’s idea of a critical period and applied
it to humans.
• According to Bowlby it was important that an infant
made an attachment to one important person in the
first two years.
• Forming a strong emotional attachment may be
difficult or even impossible after this period.
24. Attachment is reciprocal.
Adults also have an innate drive
to care for babies and children.
How babies look and behave activate
caregiving behaviours from adults.
These are called social releasers:
they release caregiving behaviour.
Babies are born to make attachments, adults are
‘hardwired’ to care for babies and children.
25. Bowlby’s theory: internal working
model
• The relationship with the primary caregiver is
internalised and becomes part of the child’s mind.
• This relationship forms the basis of the child’s
internal working model of what relationships are
and will be like in the future.
• According to Bowlby the internal working model
determines the type of relationships that child will
have in the future.
27. Evaluation: strengths
• If attachment has an evolutionary basis in human’s
evidence of attachment behaviour should be found
in all human societies.
• Attachment has been found in all cultures and
societies.
• Tronick et al (1992) found that an African tribe with
very different child rearing system to Western
societies still demonstrated one primary
attachment.
28. Evaluation: strengths
• There is support for the role of social releasers in
attachment.
• Brazelton et al (1975) conducted an experiment
where caregivers ignored their baby’s smiles,
babbling and crying.
• Initially the infants showed distress and then gave
up attempts to interact with their caregiver.
• This finding backs up Bowlby’s idea that attachment
is reciprocal and depends on social releasers.
29. Evaluation: strengths
• There is also support for the internal working
model.
• The Minnesota longitudinal study (2005) found
that the type of attachment an infant had with its
primary caregiver influenced later emotional and
social behaviour.
