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Psychology essay of attachment theory
Psychology essay of attachment theory
Psychology essay of attachment theory
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Psychological Theories of Attachment Ethological theory (The study of animal behaviour) probably the most important theory, as the ethological approach is concerned with the adaptive or survival aspect of behaviour and started with the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin himself did not come up with the idea of evolution, however what Darwin did was to explain evolution and publish it in his books Natural Selection (1858) and The Origin of Species (1859). The ideas in these books inspired Konrad Lorenz in his studies and it was Lorenz’s ideas that laid the foundations for an evolutionary approach to attachment. During his experiments on wildfowl Lorenz (1952) discovered Imprinting (the way some infant birds follow the first thing they see.) even managing to get himself imprinted in the process. From his experiments Lorenz concluded that “the behaviour patterns of caring for young children and the responses which an adult experiences are on an innate basis and babies are biologically prepared to actively establish a bond with their caregivers.”(www.nobelprize.org.medicine/laureates/1973/lorenzautobio.html). Dr John Bowlby took these ideas of the infant-caregiver bond after being inspired by Lorenz’s work believing that human babies are born with a built in set of behaviours to keep a parent nearby and protect them from danger. Another important theorist was Harlow he was inspired by the work of Spitz (1946) Raised without handling or loving attention they withered away and died. Harlow designed experiments with rhesus monkeys, placing the infant monkeys in a cage with two surrogate mothers. One mother was made of wire and pro... ... middle of paper ... ...consequently contradicts Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory. Ann and Alan Clarke are also critical of Bowlby’s theories, insomuch as they do not believe in his views on attachment. They believe that the whole of childhood is important, with the formative years of no more importance than middle or later childhood Clarke and Clarke have challenged Bowlby consistently as they site studies such as the Bulldog Bank study (A. Freud and S. Dann) Study of Twin Boys (Koluchova 1972).Clarke and Clarke also believe the study of animal behaviour is irrelevant when studying human parent-child relationships; additionally Clarke and Clarke proclaim that children born in bad conditions usually have to endure them throughout life, so we come to the question can children recover from early deprivation, research state’s it can.