AS Psychology

Why do babies form

attachments?

Theories of Attachment

Explanations of the underlying

mechanisms of attachment formation (how

& why)

Two major approaches:

Learning theory (Dollard & Miller)

Evolutionary theory (Bowlby)

Learning Theory

Dollard & Miller (1949)

Attachment is a set of learned behaviours

(i.e. results from experience of the

environment, not innate processes)

Classical conditioning (association)

Operant conditioning (consequences)

Classical conditioning This offers a similar but simplified explanation of how food provides

attachment. The child simply associates food and mother together,

much as Pavlov’s dogs associated bell and food together.

If you want this in technical terms:

Food is an unconditioned stimulus that produces an unconditioned

response (pleasure).

At the outset, mother is a neutral stimulus who produces no

response (pleasure)

However, because she is continually paired with the unconditioned

stimulus (food) she slowly becomes associated with it until

eventually mother alone can produce pleasure.

Mother has now become a conditioned stimulus and the pleasure

she brings is a conditioned response.

(Think of conditioned as learned whereas unconditioned is something

that was there all the time).

Operant conditioning Dollard and Miller (1950) suggested that the attachment was due to

drive reduction. Hunger and cold have a strong motivating affect on

the child, driving the child to satisfy its need by eating or seeking

warmth. Obtaining food or warmth results in drive reduction which in

itself provides reward for the child.

Hunger and cold (discomfort) are referred to as primary drives and

food and warmth are primary reinforcers. The person supplying

the food and warmth (usually the mother) becomes associated with

the food and warmth and acts as a secondary reinforcer. The

attachment occurs because the child wants the person providing the

food and warmth.

Note: When the child is cold and hungry it cries. This is unpleasant

for the mother (punishment) who is likely to feed and cuddle the

child. The child stopping crying acts as a negative reinforcer for the

mother (something unpleasant has been taken away). Negative

reinforcers make the mother’s behaviour, feeding and cuddling,

more likely in future!

Learning Theory

Main predictions:

The child will form attachments on the basis of

primary care provision (feeding etc.)

Attachment behaviour should increase steadily

from birth

The strongest attachments will be with those

who provide the most primary care

Evaluation of Learning Theory

As always the behaviourist explanation is reductionist

because it takes a complex human behaviour and tries

to explain it in the simplest terms possible.

It does not consider any internal processes or seek to

explain the emotional nature of attachments simply how

they arise as behaviours.

The behaviourist theories of attachments (and Freud’s

psychodynamic) are sometimes referred to as cupboard

love theories because of their emphasis on food and

feeding.

Evolutionary Theory – Imprinting

Lorenz

This idea comes from the work of ethologists on non-human animals, particularly

birds.

Just as physical characteristics of various species develop at certain stages of

growth, the ethologists claim that perhaps attachments will only form during

similar critical periods.

The most famous examples of this are birds forming attachments to the first thing

they see upon hatching.

Ethologists refer to the phenomenon as imprinting. It has the following

characteristics:

It occurs during a critical period. With ducklings the strongest tendency,

according to Lorenz, is between 13 and 16 hours after emerging from the egg. If

no attachment has developed within 32 hours it’s unlikely any attachment will

ever develop.

It is irreversible: once the bond is formed it cannot be broken, nor can its effects.

It has consequences both for short term survival and in the longer term forming

templates for later relationships.

Evidence

Konrad Lorenz (1935) split a clutch of goose eggs and

got half to be hatched by their mother and the rest were

placed in an incubator and saw Lorenz on hatching. The

second group subsequently followed Lorenz everywhere

and became distressed if they were separated from him.

Lorenz and his imprinted ducks

Immelmann (1972) imprinted newly hatched zebra

finches on Bengalese finches. Later in life the zebra

finches ‘preferred’ to mate with Bengalese finches rather

than their own species. Evidence for the long term

effects.

Criticisms Guiton et al (1966) disagreed with the irreversible nature of

imprinting. They imprinted newly hatched chickens onto yellow rubber

gloves. In later life, just as the theory predicts, they did indeed try to

mate with the gloves. However, when they had chance to spend time

with others of their own species, they developed a ‘taste’ for mating with

these instead.

Most criticisms of the imprinting or critical period theory however,

are based on its application to humans.

Few would argue for such a rigid period of attachments in

humans. However, some, for example Bowlby, have argued for a

‘watered down’ version, referred to as a sensitive period. The idea being

that there is a time in an infant’s life when it is most likely to form an

attachment, but it can continue to form them outside this period. Bowlby

argued that our need to form attachments was innate and would occur in

the sensitive period between the ages of 1 and 3 years.

Evolutionary Theory

Bowlby (1953)

Attachment is biologically pre-programmed

into children at birth

Encoded in the human genes

Evolves and persists because of its

adaptiveness (i.e. it is evolutionarily useful)

Bowby’s theory

Took the work of Lorenz on the innate nature of bonds

through imprinting and combined these two very different

ideas to produce his own evolutionary theory of

attachments.

Bowlby believed that attachment is innate and adaptive.

We are all born with an inherited need to form

attachments and this is to help us survive.

In line with Darwin’s theory of natural selection, any

behaviour that helps you survive to maturity and

reproduce yourself will be maintained in the gene pool.

In human terms, the newborn infant is helpless and

relies on its mother for food, warmth etc.

Similarly the mother inherits a genetic blueprint that

predisposes her to loving behaviour towards the infant.

Bowlby believed that an attachment

promotes survival in 3 ways:

1. Safety: the attachment keeps mother and child close to

each other. Separation results in feelings of anxiety.

2. Safe base for exploration: the child is happy to wander and

explore (necessary for its cognitive development) knowing

it has a safe place to return to if things turn nasty. This

also develops independence necessary in later life.

3. Internal working model (IWM): This was based on Freud’s

idea of the mother-child relationship acting as a prototype

fro all future attachments. Bowlby believed that this first

relationship forms a template or schema that gives the

child a feel for what a relationship is.

Sensitive period

Being innate Bowlby believed there would be a

period in which they were most likely to develop,

similar to the critical period for imprinting.

Unlike a critical period (the only time in which an

attachment may form), a sensitive period

suggests a time when they are most likely to

occur.

Bowlby believed that for the human infant this

was between the fourth and sixth month.

After this it becomes ever more difficult for the

child to form a first attachment.

Other aspects

Irreversible

Once made the attachment cannot be broken.

Social releasers

Being innate the child has built in mechanisms

for encouraging care-giving behaviour from

parents.

Children have ‘baby faces’ and their noises and

facial expressions such as smiles encourage

contact.

It seems that adults are genetically primed to

respond to these releasers by offering care and

affection.

Evolutionary Theory

Main hypotheses:

Attachments will form with those who respond

to child’s signals

Attachment will correlate with other aspects of

(biological) development

There will be a special attachment figure that is

more important than others

Disruption of attachments will have

developmental consequences

Continuity hypothesis

The internal working model ensures that early

attachments are reflected in later relationship

types.

For example, a secure attachment as a child

leads to greater emotional and social stability as

an adult, whereas an insecure attachment is

likely to lead to difficulties with later

relationships.

As already mentioned this is likely to be reflected

in the parenting style when the child matures

and has children of their own.

Monotropy The argument here is not as straight forward as it first

appears. On the face of it the debate is between many

attachments or just the one. However, Bowlby, who was in

the ‘one’ camp, did not actually believe that only one

attachment was formed, rather that there was only one

primary attachment. The ‘many attachments’ approach

believes there are many attachments and that they are all

similarly important to the child. The text also claims that

Bowlby did not believe that the main attachment had to be

the mother, saying that his words ‘maternal’ and ‘mothering’

were not intended to mean mother!

Thomas (1998) made it clear that children benefit from a

variety of attachment styles provided by different caregivers,

so for example an attachment to a father figure will provide

benefits to the child that a mother alone could not provide.

In Caribbean and European culture, infants seem to form

many equally important attachments to different people.

Bowlby (1969) claimed that there was a hierarchy of

attachments, with a primary caregiver, usually the mother at

the top.

The Efe, an African tribe, share the care of their children so

that women in the village breast feed each another’s

children. However, the infants still go on to form their

primary attachment with their biological mother.

Schaffer and Emerson’s Glasgow babies study found that

nearly a third of infants had five or more attachments by the

age of 18 months.

The Continuity Hypothesis – support for

Bowlby Hazan and Shaver (1987) wanted to explore

whether there was a link between attachment type

in infancy and the success of adult relationships.

They published a ‘love quiz’ in a local newspaper

and readers were asked to send in their completed

quizzes.

The quiz was made up of 2 parts: a checklist which

assessed their type of attachment as an infant and

a multiple choice section that assessed their

attitude to their partner.

1200 replies were sent in. Of these, 620 were

analysed.

Hazan and Shaver found a relationship

between the type of attachment people

developed in infancy and the length of a

committed relationship that they had in

adulthoodType of

bond

Childhood experience with

parent

Adult experience with

partner

Divorce

Secure Close warm relationship

with parents and between

parents

Secure, stable and loving

relationship with partner

6%

Avoidant Mother was cold and

rejecting

Fear of intimacy, emotional

highs and lows, jealousy

12%

Anxious

ambivalent

Father was perceived as

unfair

Obsessive, jealous and

emotional highs and lows

10%

Evaluation of the Love Quiz Self selected sample: the participants volunteered after reading an

advert in the Rocky Mountain News.

Poor way of selecting participants since you are not getting a cross

section of the public.

Using this sampling technique, for example, you are going to get

people with an ‘axe to grind’ or with extremes of experience or

opinion.

Questionnaire: People tend not to answer truthfully, particularly on

issues of relationships, instead wanting to make themselves look

good.

Retrospective: As we saw in memory our recollection of past

events is not reliable, so it seems unlikely that people’s memory of

their childhood experiences will be accurate

Cause and effect: The researchers have shown a relationship

between early attachments and later ones and are assuming that

the childhood experience has caused the adult experience.

However, other factors could be involved.

Kagan (1984) suggested the temperament hypothesis.

Bowlby evaluation

Very influential theory

It has been widely studied with some

researchers agreeing, some suggesting

modifications

It has been widely applied in practical

situations, particularly in hospitals,

children’s homes and fostering policy

Bowlby seems to concentrate on the role

of the mother and neglected the father

believing the latter to be of little

significance.

Later research has shown that the father

can play a useful role

Lamb (1983) suggests that often children

prefer the rough and tumble play they get

with the father.

Similarly Bowlby seemed to overlook the relationships

the child develops with its brothers and sisters. Schaffer

(1996) describes these as horizontal relationships as

opposed to the vertical relationships with parents,

teachers and other adults.

Research for the internal working model is at best

mixed. Zimmerman et al (2000) assessed attachment

style of children ages 12 to 18 months and then in a

longitudinal study checked again at the age of 16 years

(using interviews to determine the relationship the child

had with its parents). They found that early attachment

style was not a good predictor of later relationships and

also discovered that life events such as parental divorce

had a much greater impact.

A poor early start can be overcome by positive

experiences at school and good adult relationships

(Rutter & Quinton 1988).