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Psychology : The Nurture Theory And The Nature Theory

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In developmental psychology, attachment describes an affectional bond between an infant and its caregiver. An infant who is attached to its caregiver will want to maintain proximity to him/her, will experience distress upon separation and will use the caregiver as a secure base. This paper will discuss two theories in developmental psychology: The nurture theory and the nature theory. The nurture theory, known as the behaviourism theory, tells us that babies learn all of their behaviours and that attachment is a result of conditioning. We will look at two types of learning and evaluate the nurture theory using research. In contrast, the nature theory is an evolutionary theory of Bowlby (1988) which states that babies are born with a survival instinct to use social releases to ensure adults care for them (Eysenck, 2012). Certain concepts of Bowlby’s (1988) research will be outlined in this paper and and research will be used to evaluate the nature theory.

Nurture theory, or behaviourism, is the theory that every baby is born as a ‘blank slate’ and all behaviour is learned.
The first concept in this theory is based on the work of Pavlov (1890-1930) and is called Classical Conditioning. Pavlov’s research on dogs led Watson (1913) to conduct research that found that attachment is learned when a baby associates its caregiver with a positive response. (Green, no date)
During Pavlov’s study he found that when his dog saw the person who fed him, he would salivate without having yet

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