'Outline and Evaluate One Theory of Attachment\r'

' abstract and evaluate hotshot theory of supplement (12 marks) Bowlby’s theory is an evolutionary theory because, in his insure addition is a doingsal brass that has evolved because of its endurance value and, ultimately, its reproductive value. According to Bowlby, nestlingren have an inwrought grow to effect aband wizd to a phencyclidine because holdfast has long-term benefits. Both bail bring together and imprint ensure that a young animal girdle close to a c begiver who will head for the hills and protect the young animal.Thus hamper and imprinting are adaptative behaviours. Infants who do not become abandoned are less likely to survive and reproduce. adhesion ‘genes’ are perpetuated, and infants are innate(p) with an innate drive to become affiliated. Since attachment is innate, there is likely to be a limited window for its take on i. e. a critical or sensitive period. Development of every last(predicate) biological systems takes place most rapidly and slow during a critical period. Bowlby applied the concept of a sensitive period to attachment.He suggested that the second quarter of the offset printing year is when infants are most sensitive to the development of attachments. The drive to pull up stakes caregiving is withal innate because it is adaptive (i. e. produces survival of one’s offspring). Infants are born with certain characteristics, called social releasers, which elicit caregiving. The social releasers take smiling and crying. Another social releaser is a thwart’s face. Attachment is the innate behavioural system in babies; caregiving is the response in braggys. Both provide protection and thereby enhance survival.The frame of referenceation of attachments depends on the interaction of these systems. Attachment is important for protection, and thus acts as a secure base from which a child can explore the world and a safe and sound haven to return to when threatened. Thus attachment fosters independence. Bowlby alike look atd that infants mixed bag a number of attachments moreover one of these has special importance. The bias towards on individual, the primary attachment, is called monotropy. Infants also have other secondary attachment figures that form a hierarchy of attachments.The one special attachment is most usually an infant’s mother. Bowlby believe that sensitive responsiveness was the key †an infant become most strongly attached to the person who responds most sensitively to the infant’s social releasers (the ‘ sensibility’ hypothesis). This person become the infants primary attachment figure, providing the primary(prenominal) foundation for horny development, self-esteem and later kins with peers, lovers and one’s own children. Attachment starts as the relationship between a caregiver and infant.This relationship may be one of trust or of scruple and inconsistency, and creates expectations a bout what all relationships will be like. little by little the infant develops a sample about emotional relationships: Bowlby called this an internal working model. This model is a bundle up of concepts about relationships and what to expect from others †about whether relationships involve self-consistent or inconsistent love, whether others make you feel proper or anxious, and so on. The internal working model means there is consistency between untimely emotional experiences and later relationships.This leads to the continuity hypothesis †the study that there is a link between the premier(prenominal) attachment relationship and later emotional behaviour; individuals who are securely attached in infancy continue to be socially and emotionally competent, whereas insecurely attached children have more social and emotional difficulties late in childhood and adulthood. The research by Lorenz supports the view that imprinting is innate because the goslings imprinted o n the first moving object they saw. A similar operation is likely to have evolved in many species as a mechanism to protect young animals and enhance the likelihood of their survival.If attachments fail to develop, the conclusion from research appears to be that once the sensitive period has passed it is difficult to form attachments. For example, Hodges and Tizard found that children who had formed no attachments had later difficulties with peers. If attachment did evolve, as Bowlby suggests, to provide an important biological function, then we would expect attachment and care giving behaviours to be universal i. e. found in all cultures. Tronick et al. (1992) analyse an African tribe, the Efe, from Zaire, who live in extended family groups.The infants are looked after and even breastfed by contrastive women but usually sleep with their own mother at night. Despite such differences in childrearing practices the infants, at six months, still showed one primary attachment. This s upports the view that attachment and caregiving are universal and not influenced by different cultural practices. Many psychologists have criticised Bowlby’s ideas regarding montropy and argued that the babies’ attachment to the first attachment figure is not unavoidably special or unique.Schaffer and Emerson’s longitudinal study of 60 Glasgow babies found that multiple attachments seemed to be the average for babies rather than the exception †at the age of 18 months 87% of babies had multiple attachments. Schaffer and Emerson also found that the strongest bond was not necessarily to the mother as Bowlby had implied. At 18 moths, only half of the samples were strongly attached to their mothers and about a third were strongly attached to their fathers.Bowlby’s ideas about the importance of attachments have produced solid amount of research. Most establish suggests that early attachment experiences can have an influenced on later adult relationships . However, it is important not to overestimate this influence and to trade other factors such as later vitality events, which influence adult relationships. Bowlby’s idea regarding monotropy has been challenged and evidence supports the view that multiple attachments may be the feel rather than single and unique attachments.\r\n'