AQA Psychology for A Level Year 1 & AS - Student Book
Comprehensive study notes on AQA Psychology topic of Attachment.
Can easily be turned into flashcards for effective revision.
Includes practice questions at the end of the document.
Bowlby’s monotropic theory
Monotropy
- Bowlby placed emphasis on a child’s attachment to one caregiver.
- He believed this caregiver is different and more important than any other.
- Bowlby called this person the ‘mother’ but this did not need to be the
biological mother.
- He believed the more time a baby spent with the primary attachment
figure the better.
- He put forward two principles-
→ The law of continuity- the more constant and predictable a child’s
care, the better the quality of their attachment.
→ The law of accumulated separation- the effects of every separation
from the mother add up.
Social releasers and the critical period
- Social releasers are innate behaviours like crying and smiling, which are
designed to elicit adult responses and attention.
→ Their purpose is to activate an adult to feel love towards the baby.
- Both mother and baby have an innate predisposition to become attached
and social releasers trigger a response in caregivers.
- Bowlby proposed there is a critical period around two years when the
infant attachment system is active.
- If an attachment is not formed by the age of two, a child will find it hard to
form an attachment later.
Internal working model
- An internal working model is the mental representation of relationships
with the primary caregiver created from the child’s first attachment.
- The IWM has an important effect on the nature of future relationships.
→ A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a
reliable caregiver will form an expectation that all relationships are
as loving and reliable, and they will bring these qualities to future
relationships.
- The IWM will also have an effect on the child’s later ability to be a parent
themselves.
→ People tend to base their parenting behaviour on their own
experiences of being parented.
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