Outline and evaluate the learning theory of attachment Essay

The learning theory of attachment focuses of two concepts operant and classical learn. Classical conditioning as an accounting for attachment describes the cosset receiving nutrition (and unconditioned stimulus) and producing an unconditioned response (happiness) and the mother feeding the baby leave alone be the neutral stimulus. The baby allow then start out the mother giving them food (and therefore happiness) a number of measure and then learn to associate the mother (now a conditioned stimulus) with the note of happiness (a conditioned response) and thus an attachment will form. Operant conditioning describes attachment as a reinforced response. When a baby gets food its discomfort will stimulate happiness and the baby will associate this feeling with food and therefore food will become the primary reinforcer. The person feeding the baby will also be associated with the happiness and therefore become the secondary reinforcer and an attachment will form. ( adjudicate)Ev en though the learning theory of attachment provides an adequate explanation of attachment it is flawed. Research evidence, such as that of Harlows monkey around lead, opposes the thinker of learning theory as an explanation of attachment. Harlows monkey study involved giving a baby monkey the choice of either food or comfort (food was represent by a conducting wire monkey with a feeding bottle attached to it and comfort was portrayed by a wire monkey covered in cloth). fit in to the learning theory of attachment the monkey should have spent more or less of his time on the food monkey, however the opposite was true the monkey spent the majority of his time on the comfort monkey. This decreases the rigorousness of the learning theory of attachment as an explanation for attachment because the findings of Harlows monkey study opposed what it suggested. However, the monkey study was conducted on monkeys and it could be argued that this is not an accurate representation of huma n attachment. Humans are a lot more complex than animals and so therefore research on animals to study behaviour cannot be applied to human behaviour. Outline and evaluate the learning theory of attachment (12 marks) A GRADE (outline)