adult relationships

• romantic relationships

  research indicates a intergenerational continuity between adults attachment types and their children, including children adopting the parenting style of their own parents. there also appears to be continuity between early attachment styles and later adult relationships
• Hazen and Shaver - love quiz - procedure


  -> conducted the love quiz, aiming to investigate the impact of early attachments on adult behaviour

  -> 620 replies

  -> three sections: first assessed the respondents current or most important relationship, second assessed general love experiences e.g. number of partners, third assessed attachment type by asking participants to pick out of three descriptions best applied to them
• Hazen and Shaver - love quiz - results

  -> 56 % securely attached

  -> 25 % insecure - avoidant

  -> 19 % insecure - resistant
• Belsky

  women with secure childhood attachments experineced less conflict with husbands and were more committed to relationships, supporting the internal working model
• Hazen and Shaver - love quiz - findings

  -> in both samples [adults and students] those described as securely attached described the most important love relationship as 'happy, friendly, and trusting' they had longer lasting relationships and if married tended not to divorce

  -> securely attached participants expressed belief in lasting love. they found others trustworthy and had confidence in being likeable

  -> insecure - avoidant = more doubtful about the existence of love, they maintained they dont need a partner to be happy

  -> insecure - resistant = vulnerable to loneliness
• Zimmerman

  found early attachment type as an infant did not predict the quality of later relationships, with life events such as parental divorce having more influence
• hamilton

  found securely attached children went on to have insecure relationships if they had experienced negative life effectsc
• adult relationships as a parent

  internal working models also affect the childs ability to parent their own children. people tend to base their parenting styles on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family
• Bailey et al

  tested 99 mothers with 1 year old babies on their qualiy of their attachment to theri own mothers using a standard interview procedure.

  researchers also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mmothers by observation

  it was found that mothers who reported poor attachments to their own parents in the interviews were much more likely to have children classified as poor according to the observations

  therefore supports the idea of an internal working model and the fact that early attachments can shape our later life relationships
• evaluation

  -> the evidence on contuity of attachment type is mixed

  -> Zimmerman assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents. the findings indicated that the was very little relationship between quality of infant and adolsecent attachment. this is a problem because this outcome is not what would be expected if the internal working models were important in development
• evaluation of adult relationships

  -> most of the studies of the influences of early attachment on later relationships lack validaty. this is a weakness because this data is retrospective, so there is high chance that the data being collected in these studies is inaccurate and raises possible inaccuracies
• evaluation of adult relationship

  -> a problem with research assessong the internal working model is that association between early and later life attachments does not always mean causality. a third environmental factor such as parenting style might have a direct effect on both attachment and the childs ability to form relationships with others. the childs temperament may also influence this. this is a limitation because it is counter tp bowlbys view that the internal working model causes these later outcomes