A01 Influence Of Early Attachments On Later Relationships

• Internal working model


  Quality of child's first attachment is crucial as this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships
• First experiences


  A person whose first experience is of a loving relationship with reliable caregiver will tend to assume this is how relationships are meant to be
• Consequences of good quality first relationships

  Person will seek out functional relationships that are allowing them to behave functionally without either being too uninvolved or either too emotionally close
• Consequences of bad quality first relatioships


  Contrastingly, children with bad experiences will bring these bad experiences to bear on later relationships. May struggle to form relationships in first place or may not behave appropriately when they do have them
• Relationships in later childhood

  Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood
• Kerns on securely attached children


  States that securely attached children tend to go on to form best quality childhood friendships while insecurely attached infants have friendship difficulties
• Wilson and Smith


  Assessed attachment types and bullying involvement using standard questionnaires with 196 children aged 7-11 from London. Found insecure-avoidant children most likely to be the victims and insecure-resistant to be the bullies
• Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners

  McCarthy studied 40 adult women assessed when they were infants to establish to establish their early attachment type
• Findings from McCarthy's experiment

  Securely attached children had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships. Adults classified with Insecure-resistant had particular problems maintaining relationships while those classified as insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships.
• Hazan and Shaver


  Conducted a classic study of association between attachment and adult relationships. Analysed 620 replies to a 'love quiz' printed in American local newspaper. It had 3 sections.
• 1st section in the newspaper


  Assessed respondent's current/most important relationship
• 2nd section in the newspaper


  Assessed general love experienced such as number of partners
• 3rd section in the newspaper

  Assessed attachment type by asking respondent to choose which of three statements best described their feelings
• Findings of 'love quiz'

  56% of respondents identified as securely attached with 25% insecurely-avoidant and 19% insecurely-resistant
• Those assessed secure and avoidant


  Those assessed with secure attachment were most likely to have good/longer lasting romantic experiences. Avoidant respondents tended to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy
• Patterns


  Patterns of attachment behaviour is reflected on romantic relationships
• Relationships in adulthood as a parent

  Internal working model also affect child's ability to parent their own children. People tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generation of a family according Bailey et al