Influence of early attachment on later relationships

• What is the internal working model?

  • Bowlby suggested that a child having their first relationship with their primary attachment figure forms a mental representation of this relationship
  • This internal working model acts as a template for future relationships. The quality of the child's first attachment is crucial because this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships.
• More on the internal working model:

  • A child whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver will tend to assume that this is how relationships are meant to be.
  • They will then seek out functional relationships and behave functionally within them
  • Type A behaviour would likely be being uninvolved or being too attached
  • Type C behaviour would likely be controlling and argumentative
  • A child with bad experiences of their first attachment will bring these bad experiences to later relationships. This may mean they struggle to form relationships in the first place or they may not behave appropriately when they are in them, displaying type A or C behaviour towards friends and partners
• Relationships in later childhood:

  • Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood
  • Securely attached infants tend to go onto form best quality childhood friendships
  • Insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties
• Bullying and attachment type:

  • Bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type. Myron-Wilson and Smith assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using standard questionnaires i 196 children aged 7-11 from London
  • Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying
  • Insecure-avoidant children were the most likely to become victims of bullying
  • Insecure- resistant children were most likely to be bullies
• Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners - McCarthy

  • McCarthy studied 40 adult women who had been assessed when they were infants to establish their early attachment type
  • Those assessed as securely attached infants had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships
  • Adults classed as insecure-resistant as infants had particular problems maintaining friendships
  • Those classed as insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships
• Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners (Hazan and Shaver) - findings

  • Analysed 620 replies to a 'love quiz' printed in a local American newspaper
  • The quiz had three sections
  • The first had assessed respondents' current or most important relationship
  • The second part assessed general love experiences such as number of partners
  • The third section assessed attachment type by asking respondents to choose which of three statements best described their feelings
• Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners (Hazan and Shaver) - findings

  • 56% of respondents were identified as securely attached, 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure resistant
  • Those reporting secure attachments were the most likely to have good and longer lasting romantic relationships/experiences
  • The avoidant respondents tended to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy. These findings suggest that patterns of attachment behaviour are reflected in romantic relationships