Post on 18-May-2015
Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation
Lots of research support
(empirical evidence).
Imprinting in animals
demonstrated by Lorenz is common.
Strengths
Attachment is universal. Evidence that all children make attachments to the
people that care for them.
Tronick et al (1992)
Tronick found that an African tribe with a very different child rearing system to Western societies still demonstrated
one primary attachment.
Strengths
Schaffer and Emerson (1964)
The ‘Glasgow baby study’ supports Bowlby’s idea of monotropy and a hierachy of
multiple attachments.
Shaffer and Emerson found that western babies made lots of attachments but formed
one main attachment often not with the person who fed them but with the person who
responded quickly and sensitively to their needs.
The Minnesota longitudinal studyStroufe et al (2005) found evidence that backed up
Bowlby’s claim that the type of attachment an infant had with it’s caregivers influenced later
emotional and social behaviour.
The continuity hypothesis
Evaluation of Bowlby’s explanation.
WeaknessesSome psychologists
argue Bowlby stressed the
importance of one primary attachment
figure at the expense of other important attachment figures
such as fathers.
Rutter (1995) has proposed a multiple attachment model that sees all
attachments as important and suggests that they all form the infants internal
working model.
Some psychologists argue that the type of attachment
an infant has with it’s caregivers is influenced by
the infants personality and is not only due to the responsiveness and
sensitivity of caregiving from adults.
The temperament hypothesis.
Thomas and Chess (1977) have identified that babies have one of three basic personalities or
temperaments.
1. Easy babies
2. Difficult babies.
3. Slow-to-warm-up babies.
Difficult and slow to warm up babies are harder to cope with and this affects the
emotional bond they have with their caregivers.
Kagan (1984) argues that the type of attachment an
infant has with it’s caregivers depends mainly on the temperament of the
child.
Belsky and Rovine (1987) found a link between the
temperament of new born babies and later attachment type.
Belsky and Rovine found that newborns catagorised as difficult were less likely to form a secure attachment to their caregivers.