Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic…

The idea

Two rival accounts explain why babies bond. Learning theory, the 'cupboard love' view, says the bond is learned: by classical conditioning, the carer is a neutral stimulus paired with food until the carer alone produces the pleasure food did; by operant conditioning, crying brings food and comfort, and the carer is negatively reinforced when it stops. Dollard and Miller call it a secondary drive. Bowlby rejects this: attachment is innate, triggered by social releasers like crying, focused on one primary figure (monotropy), formed in a critical period of about two years, and carried on as an internal working model templating later relationships. Harlow's monkeys fed from wire and clung to cloth, which learning theory cannot explain.

What earns the marks

• Classical conditioning: food as unconditioned stimulus producing pleasure, carer as neutral stimulus paired with it, carer becoming a conditioned stimulus.
• Operant conditioning and drive reduction: crying is positively reinforced by attention, the carer negatively reinforced by the crying stopping; attachment as a secondary drive.
• Bowlby's evolutionary basis: attachment is innate because it keeps an immobile infant close to a protector.
• Social releasers and the caregiver's innate response to them.
• Monotropy: one special attachment to a primary figure, which is central to Bowlby's monotropic theory.
• Critical (or sensitive) period of roughly two years, after which forming an attachment is much harder.
• Internal working model as a template for later relationships and for the learner's own parenting.
• Evaluation: Harlow counters cupboard love; Schaffer and Emerson's findings on multiple attachments counter monotropy; Bailey et al support intergenerational continuity.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Mixing up the conditioning stages, usually by calling food the conditioned stimulus or the carer the unconditioned stimulus.

• Writing that learning theory has been disproved rather than that food alone is insufficient, since association still plays a part.

• Describing monotropy as attachment to the mother only, when Bowlby means one primary figure who need not be biological.

• Confusing the internal working model with the critical period, or treating either as a mechanism that acts on its own.

• Attributing the law of continuity and law of accumulated separation to maternal deprivation theory, when they actually belong to Bowlby's monotropic theory.

Exam tips

• Set out conditioning as a labelled sequence; examiners credit the stimulus labels, not a general story about food.
• If the question asks you to compare the two explanations, use a comparison sentence per paragraph rather than two separate descriptions.
• Use Schaffer and Emerson's findings on multiple attachments as counter-evidence against Bowlby's concept of monotropy.
• In an extended response, explain both theories concisely and develop evaluation through relevant evidence, comparisons and implications rather than repeating description.