Explanations Of attachments Flashcards
(10 cards)
Brief summary of Bowlby’s monotropic theory (1969)
He placed great emphasis on a child’s attachment to one particular caregiver that’s different and more important than others. This person was called the mother but need not to be biological mother. The more time spent with mother figure, the better.
Bowlby put forward two principles to clarify MT
The law of continuity and the law of accumulated separation
What is the Critical Period in Bowlby’s Monotropic Attachment Theory?
A child is most sensitive at 6 months and this may extend up to the age of 2-2 1/2 years. If an attachment is not formed in this time, a child will find it much harder to form one later but it is not impossible.
What are social releasers according to Bowlby?
Social releasers are innate behaviours such as smiling and having a baby face that elicit caregiving from adults. Used to activate the adult attachment system.
What is the Law of Continuity in Bowlby’s theory?
Stated that the more constant and predictable a child’s care, the better quality of their attachment.
What does the Law of Accumulated Separation state?
The effects of every separation from the mother add up ‘and the safest dose is therefore a zero dose’
What is the Internal Working Model in Bowlby’s theory?
It is a mental representation formed by a child with their primary caregiver that influences future relationships and parenting.
E.g. a child who’s first experience is a loving r/s will bring these qualities to future relationships and affect the child’s ability to parent better.
AO3: Bowlby’s MT - support for internal working models
Bailey et al. (2007) tested 99 mothers with one-year-old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers, it was found the mothers who reported poor attachments to their own mothers were likely to have children classified as poor.
AO3: Bowlby’s MT - mixed evidence for monotropy
Studies of attachment to mother and father tend to show that attachment to the mother is more important in predicting later behaviour, so this could just mean attachment to the primary figure is just stronger than other attachments, not necessarily different in quality.
AO3: Bowlby’s MT - support for social releasers
Brazelton et al. (1975) instructed primary attachment figures to ignore their babies’ social releasers. Babies who were previously shown to be previously responsive became very distressed, shows importance in attachment development.
