Evolutionary theory (Bowlby)

Evolutionary theory (Bowlby)

1. INNATE PROGRAMMING

   • Infants are born with an innate tendency to form an attachment
     • Evolved to form an attachment that serves to increase chances of survival
   • Attachment is a reciprocal process
     • Adults also have innate tendency to become attached to their infants
   • Social releasers
     • These are social behaviours that elicit a caregiving reaction
     • Necessary to ensure an interaction takes place
     • Social releasers are innate in infants
     • Responses to social releasers are innate in caregivers

2. CRITICAL PERIOD

   • Attachment is a biological process and therefore must take place during a critical period of development
   • If an attachment does not develop during this critical period, then it may not take place at all
   • Bowlby suggested the critical period to be 3 y/o, by which an attachment between child and caregiver should form

3. THE CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS

   • MONOTROPY: infant has one primary attachment
     • This relationship provides infant with an internal working model, which is the basis for all future close relationships the infant will experience
       • Internal working model is an inner representation of the parent-child bond
       • Children develop a working model of themselves based on their feelings and experiences with their primary caregiver
   • The attachment relationship that an infant has with their mother serves as a template for future relationships
   • Provides a possible explanation of the fact that early patterns of attachment are related to later child characteristics
   • Secure children: positive internal working model; feelings of security derived from having one sensitive, emotionally responsive and supporting primary caregiver (caregiver sensitivity hypothesis)

4. LORENZ (1952)

   • Studied imprinting from the behaviour of geese
     • Geese will imprint on the first moving object they see
   • Divided some gosling eggs into two groups
     • One group was left with their natural mother
     • Other group was kept in an incubator
       • When the eggs hatched, the first living thing they saw was Lorenz
   • The goslings that hatched in the incubator and first saw Lorenz started to follow him around
   • Placed both groups of goslings together with their natural mother
     • Goslings divided themselves up into the groups they had originally been in
   • The imprinting is an inherited behaviour of the goslings. If they are to follow the first living thing they see, presumably their mother, they are more likely to be fed, to be taught how to find food, and to be safe from predators. Therefore, they are more likely to survive and pass on these imprinting genes so that the next generations will have it.