Early Attachment: Childhood + Adult relationships

• define internal working model (Bowlby)


  - infants develop a schema based on their attachment to their primary caregiver

  - this schema acts as a template for how relationships work.eg: if people can be trusted or if relationships are loving
• what does the continuity hypothesis suggest?


  - an individual's future relationships will follow a pattern based on their IMW

  - this pattern includes childhood friendships, adult partners and parenting relationships with their children
• Hazan + Shaver, 'love quiz'


  - 620 ppts responded to a newspaper love quiz, including q's on romance; categorised ppts adult relationships into secure, avoidant and anxious (questionnaire also assessed childhood attachment)

  - 56% secure, 25% avoidant, 19% anxious, with a correlation between adult and child attachment type

  - secure = believed love was long-lasting, tended to not get divorced, insecure = more loneliness
• research support, early attachment style linked to quality of adult relationships

  - studied 40 women assessed for attachment style using the 'strange situation' as infants

  - found adults with long-lasting and secure adult friendships + romantic relationships were securely attached in infancy, avoidant = poor romantic relationships, resistant = poor friendships

  - both insecure groups more likely to have lived with a deviant partner
• A03, temperament hypothesis


  - suggests infant and adult relationships are linked but died to an inherited high/low reactive temperament

  - high reactivity = distressed babies who become inhibited and anxious adults; low reactivity = low distress and grow into outgoing children/adults

  - explains attachment styles are linked across a lifetime but without IMW
• A03, self-reporting on infant relationships


  - reduces validity of research, early infant relationship styles may not be recalled accurately

  - eg: reconstructive nature of memory; demand characteristics/social desirability bias
• outline Main’s assessment of childhood attachment on adult attachment 


  _ developed an attachment interview to identify IMW developed in infancy

  • types are dismissing, autonomous, preoccupied & unresolved (childhood trauma)
  • these types predicted their relationship style with their own children
• what is a critical issue and debate evaluation of the continuity hypothesis?

  : highly deterministic, theory could make people feel doomed to poor relationships
• outline Verissimo’s (2011) findings 


  : children with a strong relationship with their father were the most likely to go on to have strong friendships at nursery

  • this suggest fathers have an important role in socialisation process, early child-part relationships influence later childhood friendships
• outline McCarthy’s (1999) findings 


  : showed adult women assessed as type B (secure) in infancy had the most stable adult relationships