This question was taken from the AQA A level Psychology June 2019 Past Paper 1. This essay achieved 16/16. This is a stem-based question, meaning 6 marks for AO1, 4 marks for AO2, 6 marks for AO3. The essay was completed under timed exam conditions.
Two mothers at the toddler and parent group are chatting. “I always felt sorry for my husband
when Millie was a baby. He used to say his bond with Millie was not as strong as mine because I
was breastfeeding.” “I’m not sure”, replies the other mother. “I think there’s something about a
mother’s love that makes it more special anyway – and so important for future development.”
Discuss the learning theory of attachment and Bowlby’s monotropic theory of attachment. Refer
to the conversation above in your answer. (16)
The learning theory for attachment explains how infants form attachments through classical and
operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is learning by association. Before conditioning, food
(breast milk) is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which produces an unconditioned response (UCR) of
pleasure as a relief from hunger in Millie. The mother is a neutral stimulus (NS), who produces no
conditioned response. During conditioning, the child associates the mother (NS) who feeds them
with the food (UCS). Through repeated pairing, by regular breastfeeding, the mother becomes a
conditioned stimulus (CS) who is associated with the pleasure from feeding. This results in the
mother eliciting a conditioned response from the child and the formation of an attachment. The
husband did not form this association with the infant, as he didn’t feed Millie.
Although there is research support for this theory, a limitation is the methodological issues with the
evidence. For example, Pavlov’s dog experiment is criticised for its over-reliance on animals. Human
attachment is believed to be more emotionally complex than animal attachments. Therefore, the
behaviourist approach to explaining attachment is over-simplified. As a result, the learning theory
explanation may lack validity since it is difficult to generalise animal findings to humans with
confidence that they would behave in the same way.
A further limitation is that the learning theory supports a nurture-based view of behaviour.
Consequently, such theories are subject to environmental reductionism as they reduce a complex
behaviour, the formation of an attachment between infants such as Millie and their caregivers, to a
simple stimulus-response association. This implies that there are other factors involved in infant-
caregiver attachment. For example, as the other mother suggested, something else (such as love)
may be important for future development.
Bowlby monotropic theory proposes that infants have an innate readiness during the critical period
to form an attachment to their caregiver to protect them from harm whilst they are young and
vulnerable, in order to increase chances of survival. He believed that infants form one very special
attachment with their primary caregiver, most frequently the mother and this special, intense
attachment is called monotropy. If the mother isn’t available, the infant can bond with another ever-
present adult, known as a mother-substitute. Through the monotropic attachment, the infant would
form an internal working model which is an internal template for future relationship expectations
and will affect future development, as the second mother suggests.
A limitation for Bowlby’s monotropic theory comes from the research of Schaffer and Emerson. For
example, they found that by 18 months, only 13% of infants had only one attachment, instead, they
found that most had formed up to five attachment figures. This contradicts the idea that babies only
have one ‘most important’ attachment figure (monotropy).
Research from Harlow supports the idea that the monotropic attachment is important for future
relationships. Harlow’s monkeys that did not form any attachment (privation) grew up to be
aggressive, could not interact with other monkeys, and were unable to raise their own young.
Further evidence for this comes from the self-report questionnaire called ‘The Love Quiz’ by Hazan
and Shaver. They found a positive correlation between early attachment types and later adult
relationships. This supports Bowlby’s idea of an internal working model and suggests that our early
childhood experiences do affect our later adult relationships.
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