Learning theory

Learning theory

1. Attachment is a reciprocal bond which endures over time and leads to certain behaviours such as proximity seeking.

2. Classical conditioning: learning through association.

   • Before conditioning: food (UCS) produces a sense of pleasure(UCR).
   • During conditioning: Food (UCS) and the presence of a person who feeds the infant (NS) occur together a number of time.
     • The NS gradually becomes a conditioned stimulus.

3. Operant conditioning: learning through reinforcement

   • Dollard and Miller suggested that attachment is based on reinforcement.
   • *Hungry infant feels uncomfortable, creating a drive to reduce discomfort.
     • *When the infant is fed, the drive is reduced and this produces a feeling of pleasure. Food becomes a primary reinforce.
       • The person who supplies the food is associated with avoiding discomfort and becomes a secondary reinforce, a source of reward.
   • Attachment occurs because the infant seeks the person who can supply the reard.

4. Strengths

   • Infants do acquire attachment through association and reinforcement but the reinforce is not food
     • For example, a caregiver who is responsive to the babies needs is providing the reinforce and this encourages the attachment.

5. Limitations

   • People believe that feeding plays a key role in attachment but evidence shows otherwise.
     • Harlow conducted an animal experiment in a lab. Infant rhesus monkeys were placed in a cage with 2 wire mothers- the 'lactating mother' had a feeding bottles attached and the other was wrapped in soft cloth but offered no food.
       • The monkeys spent most time with the cloth-covered mother and would cling to it especially when they were frightened.
   • Schaffer and Emerson conducted a controlled observation of 60 babies in their own homes for a period of about a year.
     • They found that infants were not most attached to the person who fed them.
     • The strongest attachments were to the person who was most responsive and who interacted with them the most.