Explanations of Attachment

Explanations of Attachment

1. Learning theory

   • All behaviour is learned
     • Classical conditioning- Food produces pleasure. The feeder (mother)is associated with food and so also produces pleasure.
     • Operant conditioning- Food is a primary reinforcer, so the feeder becomes a secondary reinforcer.
   • Strengths
     • In the Efe tribe, the child would sleep with the mother but be cared for and fed by oter women. However, the primary attachment was still usually the mother.
     • We learn through conditioning, however food is not the only factor; attention and responsiveness are also important.
   • Limitations
     • Harlow showed that food is less important when forming attachments than contact comfort.
     • Schaffer and Emerson found that infants were not necessarily attached to the adult that fed them.

2. Evolutionary theory (Bowlby)

   • Attachment is adaptive and innate- related to imprinting.
     • Strengths
       • Lorenz found that imprinting is innate because the goslings imprinted on the first moving object they saw, e.g. the goose or Lorenz himself.
       • Hodges and Tizard proved there is a sensitive period as they found once this stage has passed children found it harder to form attachment with peers.
       • Schaffer and Emerson found that infants had multiple attachments (hierarchy) , but only one primary attachment figure (monotropy).
       • Schaffer and Emerson found that strongly attached infants had mothers who responded quickly to their demands and offered their child the most interaction.
       • The Minnesota Longitudinal study has followed participants from infancy to adolescence and has found continuity between early attachment and later emotional behaviour, supporting the continuity hypothesis.
     • Limitations
       • Rutter found that all attachment figures are equally important.
       • Grossman and Grossman alluded to the concept that fathers play a key role in social development.
       • The temperament hypothesis contradicts the continuity hypothesis. It suggests that certain personality or temperamental characteristics in the infant can shape a mothers responsiveness.