it's hard to argue that there isn't something special about the attachment between an infant and their primary caregiver who's usually their biological mother but what explains such a strong bond developing so quickly unsurprisingly biological psychologists often argue this attachment bond is innate babies are primed with the need to attach their mother figures and in turn the baby's caregivers have an innate response to care for them other psychologists would take a behaviorist perspective in real babies just really need to be fed and that's what they need to survive and well they love mum not because of anything special about her but because she's just the best way to get food and perhaps a parents love for infants is more relief that that baby has finally stopped crying so let's dig a little deeper and compare these two very different explanations of attachment the psych Boost flash card app has a new feature test yourself over 1,500 multiple choice questions including every topic on a level of gcsc psychology try paper one for free right now and Patron supporters can watch psych videos ad free learn from over 17 hours of exclusive exam tutorial videos and access hundreds of digital and printable resources including my Maps quiz sheets worksheets teaching slides and more explanations of attachment learning theory the first explanation for attachment is known as the cup love theory of attachment it's a learning theory explanation using IDE you should be familiar with from behaviorism if behaviorism is new to you you might want to watch my behaviorism video first but I'll tell you what you need to know for attachment right here the C love Theory argues that babies become attached to their mothers as they learn that they provide food this process is based on classical conditioning learning by association you can see here how classical conditioning works using the example of Pavlov's classic study as a reminder Pavlo found dogs would associate the sound of a neutral stimulus like a metronome with food ultimately producing saliva in response to the sound of the metronome well we can use the same diagram to explain the development of an attachment with classical conditioning we start with mom as a neutral stimulus at first the infant has no response to her over other adults however food is an unconditioned stimulus producing the unconditioned response of pleasure unconditioned means the stimulus response relationship is instinctual it doesn't have to be trained a hungry baby is naturally going to feel happy if you feed it as the neutral stimulus of mum is always present when the infant is being fed the infant learns an association between the mother and food mum then becomes a condition stimulus producing the condition response of pleasure at this point the association is formed we can also use oper and conditioning to explain infant and caregiver Behavior oper and conditioning is learning through patterns of reinforcement and we can see examples of positive and negative reinforcement in attachment relationship ships a quick reminder about positive and negative reinforcement the word positive doesn't mean something good it means adding a stimulus and negative doesn't mean something bad it means taking something away as reinforcement means making Behavior more likely if you want to increase a behavior we need to reward that behavior by giving something nice or by removing something unpleasant there's also punishment where behavior is reduced by giving an unpleasant stimulus or removing a plasant stimulus but we don't need to discourse punishment to explain attachment so going back to infant Behavior where an infant cries and the parent provides milk milk acts as a pleasant stimulus it's positive reinforcement for crying Behavior making the baby more likely to cry the next time it's hungry we can also say the parents behavior is manipulated by crying crying is a very unpleasant stimulus and of course the baby stops crying when the parent provides care this removal of an unpleasant stimulus works is negative reinforcement the next time the baby cries the parents will quickly give the baby where it needs to stop the crying behaviors distinguish between primary and secondary drives drives are the desire to complete an action we don't need to learn primary drives they're based on Instinct as they're required for survival and reproduction so we have primary Dives of sleep hunger thirst and sex secondary drives are learned we learn that secondary drives will ultimately satisfy a primary drive money is a secondary drive on its own it's useless but we learn it can be used to satisfy a number of our primary drives in this case attachment is a secondary Drive infants seek attachment with their mothers because they learn the mother will ultimately satisfy so reduce the primary drive of hunger evaluations the first evaluation we can use is that learning theory makes intuitive sense the idea that babies will cry to get attention and ultimately food seems to be obvious and matches our experience when it comes to infants we can use the term face validity to describe a theory that makes intuitive sense as a behaviorist theory the basic principles behind cupboard love are supported by a large amount of well-controlled animal research such as Pavlo for classical conditioning and Skinner for Operate conditioning but of course large scale highly controlled conditioning research on human infants hasn't been conducted for ethical and I guess practical reasons but mostly ethical our first criticism is environmental reductionism while behaviorists argue that attachment is simply a learn response due to associations and reinforcement most parents would disagree seeing that explanation of the attachment they have with their infants as overly simplistic they would want to believe they consciously decided to care for their children and their infants love them for more than just the food they provide H's research effectively counters covered love if infants become attached to what feeds them then the monkeys in Hollow studies should have become attached to the Wi mother that provided milk instead the infant monkeys showed attachment Behavior to the cloth mother which provided Comfort but not food hollow's results suggest attachment is instead an instinctual need for comfort for each explanation of attachment we can suggest another explanation as a possible alternative so in this case Bob's monotropic Theory as a convincing biological explanation for attachment that suggests infants and mothers have an instinctive drive to form close relationships this explanation makes evolutionary sense as a caregiver provides security and forming a strong relationship with a caregiver would increase the likelihood of survival we can also point out that Bobby's Theory aligns more with Harlow's findings explanations of attachment bal's monotropic Theory bal's monotropic theory is an evolutionary perspective on attachment essentially Balby believed that infants are naturally driven to form a particularly strong bond with their primary caregiv which which Balby argued was always their mother he called this Bond monotropy the idea is this bond is crucial for survival after all the caregiver is the main source of food and protection for the infant so it would make evolutionary sense for babies and mothers to form attachment to each other the mothers need to pass on their genes and the babies need to survive babies are born with inate behaviors like crying smiling and vocalizing which Balby terms social releases these are signals designed to draw the C gives attention according to BBY caregivers especially mothers are biologically prepared to respond to these signals instinctively finding them either cute or alarming Bobby's views were inspired by lorenza's studies on imprinting and Harlow's research with monkeys on the importance of touch and comfort Loren found that goslings had a 32-hour window to form an attachment or it wouldn't happen at all taking inspiration Balby argue that humans have their own critical period for forming a primary attachment and it's in the first 30 months after birth he believed that this primary or monotropic attachment doesn't form in the critical period it could lead to Lasting negative impacts on social emotional and intellectual development Bob was also inspired by Freud's emphasis on Early Child experiences and Harlow's monkey experiments Bobby thought that the bond with their mother the first relationship an infant has sets the stage for all future relationships a set of schemers formed called an internal working model think of it as a relationship blueprint it shapes how we perceive relationships later on Guiding our beliefs on whether people are trustworthy or if expressions of Love are normal behaviors and relationships Balby was interested in the strength of the monotropic relationship he suggested consistent care of infants results in a stronger attachment Bond but if there are frequent or prolonged separations the bond become disrupted according to Balby the strength of the monetary F attachment can be observed by looking for what's called safe based behavior when in infants have a solid attachment they confidently explore their surroundings but always use their mother as a sort of home base frequently returning for reassurance and if she goes missing or a stranger comes in you'll see the baby getting anxious and distressed evaluations we know Balby was deeply influenced by Lorenzo's studies on Geese particularly the idea of a critical period for attachment however care should be taken when extrapolating animal research directly to humans for instance there's been studies with orphans who' have experienced an extreme form of maternal deprivation the results of these studies indicated that while there's a sensitive period for attachment it's not as rigid as in geese despite bal's Claim about irreversible harm significant recovery is possible of appropriate care Bobby has made significant contributions to the field of attachment research not only did he pave the way for other important researchers like Mary anworth but his theories also reshaped Early Child Care practices these days there's an emphasis on the importance of immediate physical contact between mothers and their newborns also Social Service professionals take cases of neglect very seriously as they understand the potential long-term effects of mistreatment Bob's theory has faced criticism for perpetuating gender biases particularly Alpha bias which exaggerates the differences between genders according to Balby fathers primarily serve as providers while mothers play an indispensable monotropic role such a perspective is arguably a product of 1940 Society the concept of monotropy does really hold up well today especially with the evolving dynamics of modern families where mothers are working and caregiving responsibilities are shared between parents and other caregivers remember we can use the counter Theory as evaluation there are alternative theories to Bobby's evolutionary perspective behaviorist covered love Theory argues infants become attached to their mothers mainly because they associate them with food resulting in feelings of comfort and pleasure and there have been a large number of rigorous experiments that have validated the principles behind behaviorism bal's concept of the internal working model could be seen as deterministic as it leads to the continuity hypothesis that the quality of an infant attachment can predict adult relationship pans the idea that our early infancy might dictate our future relationship behaviors challenges the common belief that individuals have autonomy over their relationships and are responsible for the outcomes of those relationships I want to thank everyone over on patreon for supporting the channel because of you I've been able to teach part-time meaning I can 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