influence of early attachment on later relationships

• internal working model

  Bowlby suggested that a baby's first relationship with their primary attachment figure leads to a mental representation of this relationship.

  -internal working model acts as a template for future childhood and adult relationships.

  -quality of a baby's 1st attachment is crucial because this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships.

  -Loving relationships with a reliable attachment figure will seek out functional relationships and behave functionally.

  -bad experiences of 1st attachment will bring bad experience to next relationships.
• Relationships in childhood

  Attachment type is associated with quality of peer relationships in childhood.

  -securely attached babies tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friendships whereas insecurely attached babies later have friendship difficulties.

  -bullying can be predicted by attachment type. Smith assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using standard questionnaires.- secure children were unlikely to be involved in bullying, insecure-avoidant were most likely to be victims and insecure-resistant were most likely to be bullies.
• Relationships in adulthood

  Internal working models affect 2 major adult experiences- romantic and parental relationships.

  Hazan+ Shaver, adult women who had been assessed when they were babies to establish their early attachment type. Those assessed as securely attached babies had the best adult relationships and romantic relationships. Adults classified as insecure-resistant as babies had particular problems maintaining friendships, those as insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships.
• continued-

  People tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family.

  • Heidi Bailey considered attachment of 99 mothers to their babies and their own mothers- assessed using strange situation and interviews.
  • majority of women had the same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers.
• Evaluation- research support

  Looked at studies linking attachment to later development- concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional well-being and attachment to own children.

  -How strong the relationship is between early attachment type and later development depends both on the attachment type and the aspect of later development.

  -insecure avoidant attachment seems to convey fairly mild disadvantages for any aspect of development, disorganised attachment is strongly associated with later mental disorder.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  Not all evidence supports the existence of close links between early attachment and later development.

  • eg: the Regensburg longitudinal study followed individuals from one year of age. At age 16 attachment was assessed using the adult attachment interview and there was no evidence of continuity.
  • this means that its not clear to what extent the quality of early attachment really predicts later development.
• Evaluation- validity issues with retrospective studies

  limitation= most research, early attachment is assessed retrospectively.

  • Most research is not longitudinal. Instead researchers ask adult participants questions about their relationships with parents, and identify attachment type from this.
  • causes validity problems= asking questions relies on honesty and accurate perception. Hard to know whether what is being assessed is early attachment or adult attachment.
  • so measures of early attachment used in studies may be confounded with other factors making them meaningless.
• Evaluation- confounding variables

  limitation= existence of confounding variables.

  • some studies assess attachment in infancy which means that the assessment of early attachment is valid.
  • may have validity problems because associations between attachment quality and later development may be affected by confounding variables. eg: parenting style.
  • and genetically-influenced personality may be an influence on both factors.
  • means we can never be entirely sure that its early attachment and not some other factor that is influencing later development.