Explainations of attachment: Learning Theory

Explainations of attachment: Learning Theory

1. Classical Conditioning

   • Pavlov's Dog
   • The food is the UCS and pleasure is UCR
   • The mother is the NS which produces no response
   • The mother becomes the CS and pleasure become CR

2. Operant Conditioning

   • A drive is something that motivates behaviour
   • In the case of a hungry infant there is a drive to reduce the discomfort
   • When fed the drive is reduced and produces pleasure
   • Positive Reinforcement

3. Social Learning Theory

   • Children observe parents behaviour and imitate it
   • Parents teach their children how to behave
   • Positive reinforcement

4. Learning Theory is based on research with animals

   • Believe human behaviour is not so different from animals
   • Same stimulus and responses so it is legitimate to generilise
   • Links to conditioning

5. Contact Comfort is more important than food

   • Limitation as it says that food is the key element that forms attachments
   • Harlow showed this wasn't true with his experiment on monkeys
   • Supported by Shaffer and Emerson

6. Learning theory has some explanatory power

   • Infants do learn through association and reinforcement
   • It's attention that is the reinforcement
   • Shows infants later behaviour