John Bowlby 19071990

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John Bowlby (1907-1990)

• Child psychoanalyst whose main interest was in
  the relationship between caregiver and child

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Flash of insight!

• Bowlby combined Freuds views on the
  importance of maternal care and the ethological
  concept of imprinting to produce a new theory.
• The fundamental principle of this theory is
  that attachment is an innate and adaptive
  process, for both infant and parent, and as such
  it provides an evolutionary perspective.

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• The fundamental principle of this theory is
• Attachment is an innate and adaptive process.
• Attachment behaviour has evolved because it
  promotes survival, as proposed by Darwins theory
  of evolution. The argument is that any behaviour
  which promotes successful reproduction makes it
  more likely that the genes for the behaviour
  remain.

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Attachment promotes survival

• Safety
• Emotional relationships internal working model
• Secure base for exploration

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Bowlbys stages of attachment (1969)

• The pre-attachment phase (birth to 6 weeks)
• The attachment in the making phase (6 weeks to
  6-8 months)
• The clear-cut attachment phase (6-8 months to
  18-24 months)
• The phase of reciprocal relationships (18-24
  months and onwards)

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The role of social releasers

• The infant innately elicts caregiving from its
  care-giver by means of social releasers such as
  smiling or crying. Humans are innately programmed
  to respond to these.
• Think about it dont you feel uncomfortable
  when you hear someone cry?

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Monotrophy hypothesis

• Bowlby (1953)
• Infants have a hierarchy of attachments, at
  the top is one central caregiver that is often
  the mother
• Bowlby (1988)
• It is because of this marked tendency to
  monotrophy that we are capable of deep feelings

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• The special significance
• of monotrophy is that it
• alone provides the experience of an intense
  emotional relationship which forms the basis of
  the internal working model, the schema a child
  has for forming future relationships.

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Evaluation of Bowlbys theory

• Cross-cultural evidence Study done on African
  tribe , the Efe who live in extended family
  groups. Infants breast feed by different women
  but showed preference for their mothers.
  (Tronick,Morelli, and Ivey 1992)
• Attachments do seem to happen in all cultures
  and at the same stages.
• Rutter (1981) found indications of attachment
  shown for a variety of attachment figures.

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• Children may not form similar relationships with
  others. (Main Weston 1981)
• More desirable to have a network of close
  attachments for a variety of social and emotional
  interactions. (Thomas 1998)
• When fathers feed infants, infants are as
  securely attached to father as they are to
  mother. (Cox et al. 1992)
• Main caregiver is not always the main attachment
  figure. (Schaffer and Emerson 1964)
• It is a post hoc (after the fact) assumption
  rather than a proven fact.