"Babies' smiles are powerful things, leaving mothers spellbound and enslaved. Who can doubt that the baby that most readily rewards his mother with a smile is the one who is best loved and cared for?" (Bowlby, 1957).
Today we discussed Bowlby's evolutionary theory of attachment. Bowlby believed that attachment was adaptive and promoted survival in two ways - to ensure the baby is cared for and also so that the child develops an internal working model on which to base future relationships (which can be traced back to Freud's ideas).
The baby has inbuilt social releasers which elicit caregiving - baby faces, noises etc, that prime the parents to care for them. Attachment needs to happen within a critical period for future relationships to function properly.
The sheet of keywords from today's lesson is here and you need to have a good understanding of them all. The powerpoint is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment