Learning Theory (Behaviourist approach)
According to behaviourists, behaviour is not innate but learned. Learning can be due to associations being made between different stimuli (classical conditioning) or behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement (reward) and punishment (operant conditioning).
Neo-behaviourists suggest that we learn by watching others (social learning theory or SLT). Social learning of this sort is particularly powerful when we see others being reinforced or punished for their actions.
Note: think of conditioning as learning.
Classical conditioning
This offers a very simple 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:
According to behaviourists, behaviour is not innate but learned. Learning can be due to associations being made between different stimuli (classical conditioning) or behaviour can be altered by patterns of reinforcement (reward) and punishment (operant conditioning).
Neo-behaviourists suggest that we learn by watching others (social learning theory or SLT). Social learning of this sort is particularly powerful when we see others being reinforced or punished for their actions.
Note: think of conditioning as learning.
Classical conditioning
This offers a very simple 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:
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Food is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that produces an unconditioned response (pleasure).
At the outset, mother is a neutral stimulus (NS) 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 (CS) and the pleasure she brings is a conditioned response (CR). Again think of conditioned as learned whereas unconditioned is something that was there all the time. |
The attachment is due to a learned association between mother and the bringer of pleasure (food).
Evaluation
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.
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!
In both classical and operant explanations the attachment is formed because the child seeks the person providing the food.
Evaluation
A number of studies tell us that food is not relevant to attachment formation:
- Glasgow Babies: the infants form their primary attachment with mum even though in many cases she was absent for much of the day and other people would be providing the food.
- Harlow’s Monkeys: the infant monkeys formed the attachment with the terry-cloth mum, the one that provided warm and comfort. They would only visit the wire mum for food. When frightened they always sought comfort on the cloth mum, not the one that fed them!
- Lorenz’s geese: form an immediate attachment with the first moving thing they see. Again no food required.
The theory also ignores factors such as reciprocity, sensitive caregiving and interactional synchrony that we’ve seen are important in attachment formation.
However, before we dismiss learning theories completely, it could be that mum is satisfying primary needs in other ways such as comfort and warmth. In behaviourist terms she could still be a secondary reinforce.
Social Learning Theory (SLT)
This is similar in some respects to learning theory, in that both emphasise the role of reinforcement (an action that is rewarded being more likely to be repeated). However, SLT emphasises the role of imitation. We watch others and if they are rewarded for their behaviour we are likely to copy it ourselves. Hay and Vespo (1988) suggested that attachments develop because parents teach their children to love them. This can be achieved in three ways:
Modelling: children copy the affectionate behaviour that they see between their parents.
Direct instruction: parents teach their children to be affectionate.
Social facilitation: parents watch their children and encourage appropriate behaviours.
Evaluation
Durkin (1995) does not believe that SLT can explain the intensity of emotion that the attachment produces.