Influence of Early Attachment on Adult Relationships

• Attachment


  A child's first relationship with their primary attachment figure that leads to a mental representation of this relationship, which acts as a template for future childhood and adult relationships
• Good attachment


  Leads to good relationship expectations
• Bad attachment


  Leads to bad relationship expectations
• Internal working model


  • The mental representations we all carry with us of our attachment to our primary caregiver
• Attachment type


  Associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood
• Attachment types and bullying behaviour

  • Secure children are very unlikely to be involved in bullying
  • Insecure avoidant children are usually victims of bullying
  • Insecure resistant children are most likely to be bullies
• Internal working model


  Affects the person's ability to parent their own children
• People tend to base their parenting style on their own internal working model so attachments types tend to be passed on through generations of a family
• Harlow found a link between poor attachment and later difficulties with parenting (abused offspring)
• Quinton et al found that the lack of an internal working model means that individuals do not know how to form good relationships with their own children
• Hazen & Shaver (1987) study


  Aimed to find out if attachment types in infancy affected adult relationships
• Hazen & Shaver (1987) study procedure

  1. Placed a 'Love Quiz' in an American local newspaper to assess (1) current (adult) attachment experiences (2) general love experiences (3) attachment type

  2. Analysed 620 replies
• Correlational research


  Cannot establish cause and effect