Explanations of attachment – learning theory
- Views children as being born with blank slates. Everything we know Is learned
through our experiences.
Dollard and miller
- Importance of food, sometimes called the ‘cupboard love’ explanation as it
emphasises importance of food in attachment formation.
- Children learn to love whoever feeds them.
- Attachment is a set of learned behaviours (resulting from experience of the
environment)
- Explanations for learning behaviour include operant conditioning and classical
conditioning
Classical conditioning
- Learning to associate two stimuli together in attachment.
- Food (unconditioned stimulus) being fed brings pleasure (unconditioned response)
- Caregiver starts as neutral stimulus
- Caregiver provides food over time, so they become associated with food
- Neutral stimulus of mother has become conditioned stimulus (as they continue to
feed baby)
- Once conditioning has taken place the sight of the caregiver produces conditioned
response of pleasure
- Causing conditioned response of love, attachment is formed, and caregiver becomes
an attachment figure
US > UR
Food pleasure
NS > no response
caregiver
US + NS > UR
Food caregiver pleasure
CS > CR
Caregiver pleasure
Operant conditioning
- Involves learning from consequences of behaviour, if a behaviour produces a
pleasant consequence that behaviour is likely to be repeated
- Infant learns that crying/smiling brings positive response from adults (positive
reinforcement)
- Adults learns that responding to cries brings relief from noise (negative
reinforcement)
- Views children as being born with blank slates. Everything we know Is learned
through our experiences.
Dollard and miller
- Importance of food, sometimes called the ‘cupboard love’ explanation as it
emphasises importance of food in attachment formation.
- Children learn to love whoever feeds them.
- Attachment is a set of learned behaviours (resulting from experience of the
environment)
- Explanations for learning behaviour include operant conditioning and classical
conditioning
Classical conditioning
- Learning to associate two stimuli together in attachment.
- Food (unconditioned stimulus) being fed brings pleasure (unconditioned response)
- Caregiver starts as neutral stimulus
- Caregiver provides food over time, so they become associated with food
- Neutral stimulus of mother has become conditioned stimulus (as they continue to
feed baby)
- Once conditioning has taken place the sight of the caregiver produces conditioned
response of pleasure
- Causing conditioned response of love, attachment is formed, and caregiver becomes
an attachment figure
US > UR
Food pleasure
NS > no response
caregiver
US + NS > UR
Food caregiver pleasure
CS > CR
Caregiver pleasure
Operant conditioning
- Involves learning from consequences of behaviour, if a behaviour produces a
pleasant consequence that behaviour is likely to be repeated
- Infant learns that crying/smiling brings positive response from adults (positive
reinforcement)
- Adults learns that responding to cries brings relief from noise (negative
reinforcement)
