Behavioural Learning Theory

Behavioural Learning Theory

1. learn to do so through the processes of classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning Food (the unconditioned stimulus) produces pleasure (the unconditioned response). The person who feeds the baby becomes associated with the food, and the pleasure the baby feels towards the food, the baby starts to feel towards the feeder. The feeder now becomes the conditioned stimulus and the food the conditioned response. In this way attachment is formed. Operant conditioning suggests that when a behaviour produces pleasure, or stops an unpleasant sensation (i.e. the behaviour is reinforced), then it is likely to be repeated in the future. Therefore, a baby learns that crying will result in it being fed which will remove hunger (negative reinforcement) and given attention (positive reinforcement). Therefore, baby becomes attached to parent. Similarly, for the parent, feeding and giving attention to the baby removes the unpleasant crying (negative reinforcement), so attach to baby.

   • Schaffer and Emerson studied babies for the first year of their lives to monitor attachment behaviour. In 39% of the babies, the first attachment figure was the person who carried out physical care such as feeding and changing - it was more likely to be the person who was sensitive to and played with the baby. This suggests that food is not the primary reason for attachment, as proposed by Learning Theory.
     • Harlow (‘59) Harlow gave baby rhesus monkeys who had been removed from their mothers at birth the choice of a wire ‘surrogate mother’ with a milk bottle or a wire surrogate mother covered in a soft cloth (but no milk). Learning Theory would predict that they would become attached to the wire monkey with the milk, but the monkeys attached to the cloth mother and in times of distress would run to it for comfort. This suggests that attachment is not based on the need for food but an innate need for comfort and security. As Harlow’s research is based on monkeys we should be cautious in directly generalising findings to humans