Influence of early attachment on later relationships

• Internal Working model


  quality of child's first attachment is crucial as this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationship

  child whose first experience is a loving relationships with a reliable caregiver will tend to assume this is how relationships are meant to be -> seek functional relationships and behave functionally within them

  child whose bad experiences of first attachment will bring these experiences to later relationships -> may struggle to form relationships and behave inappropriately when they've managed to form relationships
• Relationship in later childhood

  Secure attachment - tend to form the best quality childhood friendship, very unlikely to be involved in bullying

  Insecure-resistant - most likely to become bullies -> shows bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type

  Insecure avoidant - most likely to become victims

  
  

  Insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties

  Rowan Myron-Wilson and Peter Smith assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using standard questionaries in 196 children aged 7-11 from London
• Study - Hazan and Shaver

  AIM: classic study of association between attachment and adult relationships

  PROCEDURE: analysed 620 replies to a 'love quiz' print in an American newspaper. quiz had 3 sections.

  1st assessed respondents' current or most important relationship

  2nd assessed general love experiences such as number of partners

  3rd assessed attachment type by asking respondents to choose which of 3 statements best described their feelings

  FINDINGS: 56% of respondents were identified as securely attached with 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure-resistant.

  those reporting secure attachments were most likely to have good and long lasting romantic experiences

  avoidant respondents tended to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy

  CONCLUSION: findings suggest that patterns of attachment behaviour are reflected in romantic relationships
• Relationships in adulthood

  internal working model also affects child's ability to parent their own children

  people tend to base their parenting styles on their internal working model so attachment types tend to be passed on in a family

  Bailey et al tested this idea
• Bailey et al study

  assessed 99 mothers with 1yr old babies on quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure

  researchers also assessed attachment of babies to mothers by observation.

  found that mother who reported poor attachments with their own parents were more likely to have children classified as poor according to observations.

  supports idea of an internal working model and fact early attachments can shape our later life relationships
• Weakness - evidence on continuity of attachment type is mixed

  internal working model predicts continuity between security of an infant's attachment and that of its later relationships i.e. attachment type in infancy is usually same as characterising the person's later relationships. evidence for this continuity is mixed

  e.g. some studies appear to support continuity (McCarthy) so provide evidence to support internal working models

  Zimmerman assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents

  findings indicated there was very little relationship between quality in infant and adolescent attachment
• Weakness - research lacks validity

  e.g. many assessments of early attachments and current day attachments rely on use of questionnaires and interviews as a means of categorising ppts as a specific attachment type.

  validity of questionnaires and interviews is limited as they depend on respondents being honest and having realistic view of own relationships

  related problem concerns retrospective nature of assessment of infant attachment.

  Weakness - high change the data collected in these studies is inaccurate calling into question its validity
• Weakness - association doesn't means causality

  implications that infant attachment types causes attachment.

  however, there are alternative explanations for continuity often existing between infant and later relationships.

  3rd environmental factor such as parenting style might have a direct effect on both attachment and child' ability to form relationships with others.

  alternatively, child's temperament may influence both infant attachment and quality of later relationships

  Weakness - counter to Bowlby's view that the internal working model caused these later outcomes
• Weakness - self-report is conscious but internal working models aren't

  theoretical problem with most research related to internal working models.

  e.g. internal working models are unconscious, aren't aware of their influence on us. We wouldn't expect to get direct evidence about them by means of interviews or questionnaires as people can only self-report what they're aware of.

  when ppts self-report on their relationships they're relying on their conscious understanding of those relationships

  self-report gives us indirect evidence about internal working models

  Weakness - research involving concept of internal working models could be questioned