childhood relationships

• the continuity hypothesis sees childrens attachment types as being reflected in their later relationships, this is based in the internal working modelm where an infats primary attachment forms a template for all future relationships. if a child has a loving relationship with a realiable caregiver they will assume that is how relationships are meant to be and seek out functional relationships. the opposite is true for children with bad childhood attachments. these children may have poor quality of peer relationships in childhood
• wilson and smith

  carried out research using questionnaires of 196 children in london aged 7 - 11 . they found the following behaviour depending on which attachment type the children had:

  1. secure attachment - form the best quality childhood friendships and are unlikely to be a part of bullying behaviour
  2. insecure - resistant - form poorer quality friendships and are more likely to be bullies
  3. insecure - avoidant - form poorer quality friendships and are more likely to be victims of bullying
• Youngblade and Belsky

  they found that 3 - 5 year old securely attached children were more curious, competent, empathetic, resilient, and self confident. they also got along better with other children and were more likely to form close friendships
• Mullis et al-

  they reported that late childhood attachments that are made to peers reflect those made to parents in infancy
• Laible

  found that late childhood individuals transfer attachment behaviours learnt in childhood to social situations and peer groups. this supports the idea of the continuity hypothesis and internal working model
• Westermarck


  reported that children who form close friendships in the first six years of life do not generally go on to form adult sexual relationships with each other, which suggests early attachments do affect childhood and adult relationships
• Shepher

  examined 3,000 Israeli marriage records to find that no children reared together on a kibbutx got married to each other. this backs up Westermarcks findings and supports the idea the esrly attachments influence later relationships
• evaluation of the effect of attachment on childhood relationshios

  -> attachment formed between infants and their carers have a large influence in determining the quality of subsequent childhood relationships, with those forming secure attachments seeming to profit best in terms of developing positive personal characteristics and social abilities
• evaluation of the effect of attachment on childhood relationships

  -> early attachment types can be seen to influence the development of individual differences in cognitive ability, emotional responses and social skills, all of which influence the quality of later childhood relationships
• evaluation of the effect of attachment on childhood relationships

  -> perceiving the quality of later relationships as being caused solely by the quality of early attachments is somewhat deterministic. it is likely that other factors are influential too, like financial pressure or age differences between partners
• evaluation of the effect of attachment on childhood relationships

  -> the fact that children who form attachments to each other in early childhood do not generally go on to form sexual relationships with each other suggests it is an evolutionary anti - incest device that serves to stop related individuals breeding, as such relationships could lead to the birth of children with genetically transmitted disabilities