Bowlby's Theory

Bowlby's Theory

1. Argued that attachment was an evolved mechanism that ensured survival of the child

2. Innate- Social releasers, evolution

   • Attachment behaviours on both babies and their caregivers have evolved through natural selection to ensure baby survives to reach maturity and reproduce
   • Babies posses instincts such as crying and smiling- encourage caregiver to look after them
   • Parents possess instincts designed to protect their baby from harm and to nurture them to ensure survival to maturity.
   • Those who don't possess such behaviours are less successful and their genes are no longer

3. Monotrophy

   • A single attachment to one person who is most important to the baby
   • Didn't deny that babies formed lots of attachments; he just believed one is more important than the rest

4. Critical/ Sensitive Path

   • Takes place during the first three years of a child's life
   • He borrowed concept from Lorenz and other ecologists.
   • From research with troubled adolescence - attachment between caregiver shouldn't be disrupted for first three years- otherwise serious consequenceswill occur

5. Internal Working Model

   • First attachment child builds up model of themselves -lovable or not
     • Internal working model- begun early childhood- influenced child's adulthood
       • Referred to as the continuity hypothesis
   • Model of caregiver- trustworthy or not
     • Model of relationship between the two

6. Strengths

   • Hazen and Shaver
     • Love-quiz questionnaire
     • Information collected about early attachment experiences and current romantic attitudes
       • They found securely attached as infants - happy and lasting romantic relationships- they believed love was enduring
         • Insecure as infants- found relationships harder- divorced- felt love was rare
           • Supports Internal Working model as it shows how care given at an early life affects child's adulthood

7. Weaknesses

   • Sentenced
     • Bowlby's theory is that poor early relationships sentence poor adult relationship
     • Main and Golgwn argued that people who had difficult childhoods with insecure attachment have gone on to develop positive and secure relationships-"earned security"
       • This may be due to positive school experiences and strong adult attachments , which have, lead them to develop feelings of security and trust later in their lives
         • This questions the continuity hypothesis because even if you have a bad childhood - may not effect later life
   • Multiple Attachments
     • Many psychologists have argued that the baby's first attachment is not special or unique
     • Shaffer and Emerson's longitudinal study of 60 Glasgow babies found that multiple attachments seemed to be the norm rather than the exception
     • By 7 months of age , 29% of babies had multiple attachments
     • By 18 months , 87% had multiple attachments
     • Schaffer and Emerson also found that the strongest bond wasn't necessarily between mother as Bowlby had implied
     • At 18 months , half the sample were strongly attached to their mothers and about 1/3 were strongly attached to fathers
     • This questions monotropy because there is more than one attachment figure