Influence of early attachment on later relationships

• What is the internal working model?

  - The mental representations we all carry with us of our attachment to our primary caregiver

  - They are important in affecting our future relationships because they carry our perception of what relationships are like
• Relationships in later childhood

  - Attachment type associated with quality of peer relationships in childhood

  - Securely attached infants form best quality childhood friendships

  - Insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties

  - Secure children unlikely to be involved in bullying

  - Insecure-avoidant most likely to be victims

  - Insecure-resistant most likely to bully
• What did Hazan and Shaver study?

  - Conducted a classic study of the association between attachment and adult relationships
• Hazan and Shaver (1987) procedure


  - Analysed 620 replies to a 'love quiz' that had 3 sections

  - First assessed respondent's' current or most important relationship

  - Second assessed general love experiences such as number of partners

  - Third assessed attachment type by asking respondents to choose which of 3 statements best describes their feelings
• Hazan and Shaver (1987) findings


  - 56% of respondents were securely attached, 25% insecure-avoidant, 19% insecure-resistant

  - Secure attachments were most likely to have good and longer lasting romantic experiences

  - Avoidant tended to show jealousy and fear of intimacy

  - Findings suggest that patterns of attachment behaviour are reflected in romantic relationships
• Relationships in adulthood as a parent

  - People tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed down generations
• Bailey et al. (2007) study- support for internal working model 


  The idea internal working models predicts that patterns of attachment will be passed from one generation to the next. Bailey et al (2007) studied 99 mothers; those with poor attachment to own parents were more likely to have 1-year-olds who were poorly attached. This supports Bowlby's idea of an internal working model of attachment as it is being passed through families.
• What are the evaluations for influence of early attachment on later relationships?


  - Research support

  - Counterpoint

  - Validity issues with retrospective data

  - Association does not be causality
• Influence of early attachment on later relationships evaluation - Research support

  - Reviews of evidence have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional wellbeing and attachment to own children (Fearon and Roisman)

  - Strength of the relationship between early attachment and later relationships is determined by 2 factors:

  1. Attachment type

  2. Type of later development

  - Means certain attachment types have definite advantages and disadvantages for future development, e.g. secure attachment appears to seriously advantage future development, whereas disorganised attachment seems to seriously disadvantage
• Influence of early attachment on later relationships evaluation - Research support counterpoint


  - Other research has disputed this

  - Zimmerman (2000) assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents and found very little relationship

  - Means influence of early attachment on later relationships may have been exaggerated
• Influence of early attachment on later relationships evaluation - Validity issues with retrospective data


  - Most research is assessed using retrospective data

  - Adolescents or adults are asked about their relationship with parents

  - Relies on honesty and accurate perception of participants, humans are generally not honest or accurate

  - Means the measures of early attachment used in most studies may be affected by other factors therefore making them meaningless
• Influence of early attachment on later relationships evaluation - Association does not mean causality


  - Discovering an association between early attachment and later relationship does not mean that one causes the other

  - A third factor, e.g. parenting style or temperament, might have a direct affect on both attachment and the child's ability to form relationships with others

  - This is a limitation because it is counter to Bowlby's view that the internal working model caused these later outcomes
• 1st attachment is a template for future relationships


  The quality of the child's 1st attachment is crucial because it provides a template that will affect the nature of their future relationships. This is due to the influence of the internal working model created by that 1st attachment.
• Good experience = good relationship expectations


  A child whose 1st experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver assumes this is how relationships are meant to be. They will then seek out functional relationships and behave functionally within them.
• Bad experience of attachment = bad relationship expectations

  A child with bad experiences of their 1st attachment will bring these experiences to bear on later relationships. This may mean they struggle to form relationships in the 1st place or they do not behave appropriately in them
• Secure infants form better friends and are less likely to bully


  Securely attached infants tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friendships (Kerns 1994). Securely attached infants are less-likely to be involved in bullying whereas insecure-avoidant children are most likely to be victims and insecure-resistant are most likely to be bullies (Myron-Wilson and Smith 1998).
• Internal working model affects parenting 


  People base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family
• Criticism: Correlational, not experimental links


  The research linking the internal working model/ early attachment with later relationship experiences is correlational rather than experimental and therefore we can't claim that the relationship between early attachment and, for example, later love styles is one of cause and effect.

  
  

  It is possible that both attachment style and later love styles are caused by something different - such as innate temperament. An infant's temperament affects the way a parent responds and therefore may be a determining factor in infant attachment type. The individual's temperament may explain their issues (good or bad) with relationships later in life. In this case temperament is an intervening variable.
• Criticism: Research into the influence of early attachment is too deterministic


  ... due to how it suggests that very early experiences have a fixed effect on later adult relationships and therefore children who are insecurely attached at one year of age are doomed to experience emotionally unsatisfactory relationships as adults, it doesn't allow for the opportunity of free will.

  
  

  This is fortunately not the case as researchers have found plenty of instances where participants were experiencing happy adult relationships despite not having being securely attached as infants.

  
  

  Simpson concludes that research does not suggest that an individual's past unalterably determines the future course of his/her relationships.
• Criticism - many of the studies rely on retrospective data


  The studies include asking adults questions about their early lives in order to assess infant attachment, with such recollections likely to be flawed because our memories of the past are not always accurate, but longitudinal studies also support Hazan and Shaver's findings.

  
  

  For example, an ongoing longitudinal study (Simpson et al 2007) assessed infant attachment type at one year of age. Researchers also found that participants who were securely attached as infants were rated as having higher social competence as children, closer to their friends at age 16 and were more expressive and were emotionally attached to their romantic partners in early adulthood. This supports the view that the attachment type does predict relationships in adult life.
• GRAVE: Adult attachment patterns may be properties of the relationship, rather than the individual


  An alternative explanation by Feeney 1999.

  
  

  The argument is that securely attached infants go on to have long lasting more positive relationships.

  
  

  An alternative explanation is that adult relationships are guided by a self-verification process - the tendency to seek others who confirm you expectations of relationships. Therefore it is the adult secure relationship that is causing the adult attachment type rather than vice versa.
• WEAKNESS: The influence of attachment on future relationships is exaggerated 


  Clarke and Clarke (1998) describe the influence of infant attachment on later relationships are probabilistic. People are not doomed to always have bad relationships because they had attachment problems. They just have a greater risk of problems. By over-emphasising this risk we become too pessimistic about people's futures.