How Psychological Theories Have Been Successful in Explaining Attachments

How Psychological Theories Have Been Successful in Explaining Attachments

There are various proposed psychological theories that attempt to

explain attachments. Each of which is different and are all partly but

not completely successful at explaining the process's and reasons

behind attachments in animals.

Firstly I will look at the most commonly used theory called 'the

evolutionary approach' created by Bowlby in 1969. This is apparently

the most successful of the theories at it covers most aspects and

gives the most plausible reasons for why attachments occur. Bowlby

propose that infants become attached to a caregiver because attachment

is adaptive. In other words, it is good for their reproductive success

as infants who do not become attached are less likely to survive and

reproduce. Therefore the infants are born with an innate drive to

become attached.

There are two proposed reasons why attachment is good for survival and

reproduction. The first is that it means the infant is more likely to

be well cared for when young and defenceless. The second is

attachments form the basis for later social relationships. They

supposedly provide a template for how to have relationships with other

people, and this promotes survival and reproduction.

Bowlby also believes that the infants themselves elicit care giving

from an adult by using certain social releasers e.g. crying. These

social releasers are innate and if a baby didn't have them then they

would not be cared for. The attachments occur when the baby and

caregiver interact (adult responding to baby's social releasers) as

attachments don't just occur by spending time with and ind...

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... (a reward). Therefore the person associated with reducing the

discomfort (primary caregiver for example) becomes a reinforcer. This

'rewardingness' is the supposed attachment. This theory is a lot less

successful as it has a lot of criticism's e.g. Harlow's monkeys, as it

shows that its not just the drive reduction that forms the attachment,

but the interaction and responsiveness (given by the cloth mother).

There is not one attachment theory that is completely correct but the

most successful is Bowlby's evolutionary approach as it covers all

aspects of infant's attachments in detail with reasons that are

greatly supported by other research. Whereas the learning theory isn't

so successful as it doesn't explain the relevance of attachments in an

infant's development and why they occur, just how they supposedly

occur.