influence of early attachment on later relationships

• influence of early attachment on later relationships

  internal working model suggested child having first relationship with primary attachment figure forms mental representation of this relationship - acts as a template for future relationships and own success as parent - Childs whose first experience of loving relationship with reliable caregiver will tend to assume this is how relationships are meant to be - child with bad experiences of first attachment will bring these bad experiences to bear on later relationships
• Influence of early attachment on childhood

  attachment type associated with quality of peer relationships in childhood - securely attached infants tend to go on to form best quality childhood friendships whereas insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties (Kerns) - bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type - Myron-Wilson and Smith found secure children very unlikely to be involved with bullying, resistant most likely to be bullies, avoidant most likely to be victims
• EFFECT ON CHILDHOOD EVALUATION - longitudinal research by Simpson

  assessed participants at 4 key points (infancy, early childhood, adolescence and adulthood) - found those securely attached to parents as infants rated as having higher social competence as children - children socially competent in early childhood (6-8) found to be closer to friends in adolescence (16) - those closer to friends in adolescence emotionally attached to romantic partners in adulthood - relationships at each stage of childhood can impact on relationships at following stages of development
• EFFECTS ON CHILDHOOD EVALUATION - Youngblade and Belsky 


  found 3-5 year old securely attached children got along better with other children and were likely to form close friendships - continuity between early attachment styles and quality of childhood relationships
• influence of early attachment on adulthood

  research indicates intergenerational continuity between adults attachment types and their children including children adopting parenting styles of own parents - appears to be continuity between early attachment styles and the quality of their later adult relationships - if we have secure attachment with caregiver during childhood we may go on to have close relationships as adults with others, including own children - if we have avoidant attachment with caregiver we may feel less able to get close to others in different adult relationships
• EFFECT ON ADULTHOOD EVALUATION - McCarthy

  assessed quality of adult relationships of 40 women aged 25-44 years with childhood insecure attachments - women with insecure avoidant attachments had less successful adult romantic relationships while those with resistance attachments had problems forming non romantic adult relationships - supports idea of internal working model
• EFFECT ON ADULTHOOD EVALUATION - Hazel and Shaver 


  found after participants asked to answer series of questions as part of love quiz which assessed adult romantic relationships as well as childhood relationship with parents, strong correlation between childhood attachment type and adult relationships - concluded children seem to continue to follow relationship template into later life - suggests we do carry an internal working model from early infancy into later life
• GENERAL EFFECTS EVALUATION - socially sensitive research

  suggest people are somehow doomed to experience emotionally unsatisfactory relationships as adults if they have been unfortunate enough to experience difficult relationships during childhood - these kinds of theories may have negative effects on people trying to overcome childhood problems and may lead to self fulfilling prophecy
• GENERAL EFFECTS EVALUATION - practical applications

  by gaining improved understanding of influences on relationships we can develop strategies to improve people's relationship success - e.g. if it's possible to identify certain parenting techniques that lead to healthier, more stable relationships as adults, this could be used to develop training for new parents to encourage healthy child development - we can use findings of research to benefit people's lives in the real world