Influence of early attachment on later relationships

• Procedure of Hazan and Shaver's love quiz? (AO1)

  • Aim to see if relationships in adulthood were influenced by early childhood experiences
  • Analysed 620 replies to quiz printed in local US newspaper
  • 3 sections: assessed current relationship, general love experiences and attachment type
• Hazan and Shaver's love quiz findings?

  • 56% identified as secure
  • 25% insecure avoidant
  • 19% insecure resistant
  • Secure were most likely to have good, longer lasting romantic experiences
  • Avoidants were jealous and had a fear of intimacy
  • Suggests patterns of attachment behaviour are reflected in romantic relationships
• How did Gerard McCarthy study adulthood relationships?(AO3)

  • Studied 40 adult women assessed as infants to establish attachment type
  • Secure had best adult friendships and relationships
  • Insecure resistant, issues with maintaining friendships
  • Insecure avoidant, struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships
  • Therefore research support for IWM continuity throughout childhood to adolescence
• What studies suggest that the IWM affects the child's ability to parent in future?

  • Bailey et al, 99 mothers and babies
  • Found majority of women had same attachment classification to their babies and own mothers
  • Suggests early attachment type influences adult ability to parent
• Research on relationships in later childhood? (friendships)

  • Kerns suggested that securely attached infants go on to form the best quality childhood friendships
  • Insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties
• Relationships in later childhood (research on bullying)

  • Myron-Wilson and Smith
  • Assessed attachment type and bullying involvement
  • Standard questionnaires in 196 children between 7-11 from london
  • FOUND: secure children unlikely to be involved, insecure avoidant usually victims, insecure resistant most likely the bullies
• Relationships in adulthood as a parent

  • Studies on IWM and the effects of it on adulthood, suggested that attachment style and parenting style is passed through generations
  • Bailey studied 99 mothers and babies attachments
  • Used strange situation for mothers and infants and attachment interview for mothers
  • FOUND: majority of women had the same attachment classification to their babies and own mothera
• Additional simple evaluation points (AO3)

  • Bowlby's theory of IWM establishing your relationships for the rest of time is highly deterministic, IWM should be seen as more flexible
  • Real world application in establishing children at risk with social difficulties can lead to improvements of parenting and/or early intervention
• Limitation with validity (AO3)

  • Lacks internal validity due to the use of self report
  • Uses of questionnaires and interviews to explore early childhood experience and adulthood
  • May distort the validity of findings as ppts could lie in order to appear in a certain light (response bias)
  • Or ppts may not be able to accurately recall all of their childhood
  • Therefore overall lacks validity, causing limitations on generalisability as we cannot be sure that the findings derived are accurate and representative of a wider pop
• Correlation/association limitation (AO3)

  • There is no research to establish that infant attachment type causes future attachment types, findings have merely been associations (e.g. Bailey, Gerald McCarthy)
  • There may be alternative explanations for continuity
  • E.g. parenting style on attachment and child's ability to form relationships
  • Or even child's temperament towards adult
  • Therefore challenges Bowlby's view that the IWM determines these later outcomes, may be other influences unaccounted for
• What is an IWM (AO1)

  • A mental representation formed from our first relationship in childhood (with our caregiver) that acts as a template for our future relationships
  • Bowlby suggests the first attachment is crucial as it will affect the nature of our future relationships
  • A child with bad experiences will seek these same experiences or struggle to form relationships in adulthood (exhibiting type A or C attachment style)