influence of early attachment a03

• A limitation of this research is that it is overly determinist

  it suggests that early experiences have a fixed effect on relationships and that children not with secure attachments at 1 year old are doomed to experience emotionally unsatisfactory relationships as adults. Simpson et al suggested that an individual's past does not unalterably define their future relationships as researchers have found many instances where insecurely attached infants were experiencing happy relationships therefore this challenges Hazan and Shaver's conclusions.
• Another limitation is that this research is correlational not experimental therefore cant claim a direct link towards early atathcment styles and later relationships. For example it is possible that both attahcment style and love are affected by other factors, kagan proposed the temperent hypothesis which suggests innate temperament of a child affects how a parent responds to them and may determine early attachment type ,their individual temperament may explain issues (good or bad with relationships) with relationships. Therefore because there could be other contributing factors a simple causal relatisonship cannot be established.  
• limits come with social deisrbility bias through using a self-report method however the validity has been confirmed by replication of their findings using more reliable methodology, eg. there as been a  longitudinal study conducted by simpson et al which replicated hazan and shaver’s findings. This is more accurate than the retrospective classification used by hazan and shaver,other researchers have found that partticopants securely attached as ibfantgs had higher rated social competence closer to their friends (MPCS) and more emotionally atttagced in adult relationships which therefore supports research into the influence of the iwm and suppoet sthe view that early attachment predicts future relationhipsn