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.