Early attachment on later relationships

• Internal working model is a mental representation / work frame of our relationships with a primary caregiver that becomes a template for our future relationships.
• The continuity hypothesis suggests that an individual's future relationships will follow a pattern based on their IWM. This includes childhood friendships, adult partners and parenting styles.
• Hazan and Shaver suggested an adult relationship type is a continuation of their infant attachment style (secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure resistant). Children with secure attachments would become more socially capable in childhood and adulthood than the insecure types.
• Bowlby's maternal deprivation theory suggested children with a disrupted attachment to their primary carer in the critical period would have problems with social, emotional and intellectual developments, affecting the quality of their adult relationships.
• Studies supporting the influence of early attachment:

  • Hazan and Shaver (1987) 'Love quiz'.

  620 participants responded to a newspaper love quiz. Questions included feelings on romance and categorised relationship styles into secure (those who looked for a balance between closeness and independence), avoidant (those who avoided intimacy) and anxious (those who couldn't cope well with independence). Findings showed 56% had secure relationships, 25% were avoidant and 19% were anxious. Secure has believed love was long lasting and rarely divorced while insecure reported more loneliness.
• Studies supporting the influence of early attachment:

  • Myron-Wilson (1998) assessed 196 children with an average age of 9 for indications of bullying or victimhood, as well as assessing parenting style. Findings showed those assessed as bullied had low scores in parental warmth and high in parental neglect. Those assessed as victims sored high on parental punitiveness (punishment). These suggest parental attachment styles can directly influence their childhood relationships with peers.
• Strengths of early attachment:

  • Practical application - Understanding of early attachment means schools can use the knowledge to adapt and help children alter their IWM to address childhood bullying and loneliness. The early work can also help achieve relationship stability later in life, potentially reducing the costs to the economy on issues related to divorce and couples therapy.
• Limitations of early attachment:

  • Limited explanations - Much of the research is correlation, so it is impossible to establish a 'cause and effect'. This may suggest other variables play a factor in this, such as poverty.
• Limitations of early attachment:

  • Demand characteristics and social desirability - Reliance on self report techniques reduces validity of the research. As well as this, early infant relationships may not be recalled accurately due to the reconstructive nature of memory.
• Limitations of early attachments:

  • Reductionist and deterministic - Suggesting a poor quality attachment to a primary carer means all relationships of people with said attachments will end and they would be considered 'bad parents' due to being unable to form the 'normal' relationships during their life. However, there are many cases in which insecurely attached children grow up to form successful and long lasting relationships.