Early attachment

• role of internal working model

  an infant learns about relationships from experiences. what these relationships look like and how people behave to eachother
• Hazan & Shaver Love Quiz - procedure

  The love quiz was placed in an American Newspaper, asking questions about current attachment experiences and their history of attachments. Questions were also asked about attitude to love, to assess the concept of an internal working model. 620 responses were analysed, 205 from men and 415 from women from a cross section of the population.
• Hazan and Shaver Love Quiz - findings

  The prevalence of attachment style was similar to infants (56% secure, 25% avoidant and 19% resistant).

  There was a positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences. Securely attached - describe love experiences positively and their relationships last longer compared to other attachment types.
• childhood friendships - early attachment


  The Minnesota Longitudinal study found continuity between early attachment and later social behaviour. Securely attached were more socially competent and less isolated. The IWM can explain this by suggesting it is the higher expectations they learn through early relationships that allow them to form friendlier relationships with others. Furthermore, Smith et al found secure children were unlikely to be involved in bullying but insecure-avoidant were more likely to be victims, and insecure-resistant more likely to be the bullies. 
• poor parenting - early attachment

  Harlow's research supports that poor parenting can be the result of early attachment experiences as the monkeys used in this study, struggled with parenting later on in life. Quinton et al found the same in humans as they do not have an example to follow for parenting their own children.
• mental health - early attachment

  The lack of an attachment in the critical period will lead to a lack of an internal working model. Children with attachment disorder have no preferred attachment figure, an inability to interact and relate with others which is seen as early as the age of 5 and they may have suffered neglect or a frequent change of caregivers.
• early attachment - overly deterministic

  Research in this area suggests early experiences have a fixed effect on later adult relationships but you are just more likely’ to have problems. Simpson et al concluded that there are plenty of cases where this is the case.
• early attachment - relationship is correlational


  We cannot claim a cause has led to an effect as both variables may have been caused by something different, such as an innate temperament. Not all the research done has shown a strong positive correlation between early attachment and later relationships. Fraley (2002) conducted a review of 27 samples and found that attachment types are unstable as the correlation between different attachment types at different stages in an infant life is low.
• early attachment - retrospective

  Most studies in this area rely on asking adults questions about their early lives in order to assess infant attachment. These memories can be flawed because our memories of the past are not always accurate. This can lead to validity issues within the research.
• early attachment - an alternative explanation

  Feeney (1999) argued that adult attachment patterns may be properties of the relationship rather than the individual. It may be that adults are guided by a self verification process where they seek relationships that confirm their expectations of relationships and therefore leading to the attachment type - rather than the attachment type causing the relationship.