The learning theory of attachment is a perspective known as behaviourism. Behaviourists believe that people learn how to behave in a certain way in stead of it already been pre-programmed into a child. The learning Theory was split into two methods one being classical conditioning, this tells us that babies have a rooting reflex, for example stroking the side of a babies face causing them to react by turning towards your hand, this is an innate response. This agrees with Bowlby’s theory that an attachment is already programmed into a child before birth causing the reaction.
From the evaluation of the learning theory you would predict that the infant would attach themselves to the person who feeds them, but Schaffer and Emerson found evidence against this and in their study less than half the infants attached with the person who fed them, this also proves Bowlby’s theory is more logical. The reason for this is produced when Harlow produced further evidence against the learning theory (1959). He studied infant monkeys that were removed from their mothers and placed with two replacement mothers, one was a wire monkey which provided food and the other was a cloth monkey which provided comfort, if food was the reason for attachment then the infant monkey should have gone to the wire monkey but instead it went to the cloth monkey and used it as a secure base and only left it when food was necessary. This proves that the infant immediately responds to comfort and in doing so shows that the infant monkey was programmed to attach to comfort alone.
The second method is operant conditioning, which was first studied using rats. They put them in a box with a lever that when was pressed delivered food at first the rat did this by chance then soon learned that pressing the lever rewarded them with food this states that behaviour is learnt and they are rewarded like love and attention in humans.
Miller (1949) tells us that attachment is a set of learned behaviours, compared to the evolution theory which says that attachment is pre-programmed into a child before birth.
He proposed that when infants feel hungry their uncomfortable so enter a drive state, motivating the baby to find food and so cries, the mother feeds it, once fed the babies drive reduces and it becomes comfortable. The baby learns that food is a reward which is a primary rein forcer and that the mother (food giver) is the secondary rein forcer. Although Harlow found some evidence to support Bowlby, in 1962 it was seen as to have caused a lot of issues when a few on the monkeys who had been used in the experiment were seen to have developed complications as they were less able to engage in social activity and became withdrawn and fearful although a few were able to become independent proving infant-infant bonding can be effective a lot became insecure which could also support the learning theory. The classical conditioning was support towards Bowlby’s theory but also says that food was a sense of pleasure for babies and that the food giver was source of pleasure and this is the basis of attachment unlike Bowlby’s theory where the parents and infants are programmed to become attached.
