2.11. Influence of Early Attachment

Question 1

The role of the internal working model

Answer 1

• Early attachment provides a blueprint for later attachment
• Formation of mental representation of first attachment relationship affects and predicts later relationships and own success as a parent.
• The IWM is like this -> infant learns about a relationship from experience, the infant learns what relationships are and how partners in a relationship behave towards each other.

Question 2

Relationships in later childhood

Answer 2

• Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood, while insecurely attached infants struggle.
• Securely attached infants go on to form the best quality friendships

Question 3

Myron-Wilson and Smith study

Answer 3

Assessed 196 children’s attachment type and bullying by questionnaire and found that
- Insecure-avoidant infants are more likely to be bullied
- Insecure-resistant infants are most likely to be bullies
- Secure not involved

Question 4

Hazan and Shaver procedure

Answer 4

• A love quiz was in place in a small town publication, it asked questions about
  
  • Current attachment experiences
  • Attachment history to identify current
  • Assessing attachment type by responding to one of three statements ‘best describe me’
• Questions included attitude towards love
• 620 responses analysed, 205 men and 415 women

Question 5

Findings of Hazan and Shaver

Answer 5

In terms of attachment style:
- 56% classified themselves as secure
- 25% as avoidant
- 19% as resistant

Love experience and attitudes towards love were related to attachment type

Question 6

Secure adults

Answer 6

• Positive relationships
• Trust others and believe in enduring love
• Positive image of mother as dependable and caring

Question 7

Resistant adults

Answer 7

• Preoccupied by love
• Fall in love easily but have trouble finding true love
• Conflicting memories of mother being positive and rejecting

Question 8

Bailey et al

Answer 8

• Assessed 99 mothers to their infants and to their own mothers using the strange situation and interviews
• Found that the majority of the mothers had the same attachment type with their infant as with their own mother.

Question 9

Behaviours influenced by the internal working model

Answer 9

• Mental health: the lack of attachment during the critical period in development would result in lack of IWM.
• Children with attachment disorder have no preferred attachment figure, an inability to interact and relate to others is evident before 5 as well as experience of severe neglect or change in caregivers.
• It used to be called attachment disorder but now it’s a distinct psychiatric disorder.

Question 10

Strength: strong research support

Answer 10

• Many studies show a link between infant attachment type and later development
• A review by Fearon and Roisman concluded that infant attachment type influenced development in many ways
• Disorganised attachment was most predictive
• This means that insecure attachment appears to convey a disadvantage for children’s development.
• However, not all evidence supports the link between infant attachment and later development
• For example, the Regensberg longitudinal study found no evidence of continuity of attachment type from age 1 to 16 yrs.
• This means it’s not clear how strongly attachment influences later development.

Question 11

Weakness: Zimmerman

Answer 11

• Assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents.
• There was very little relationship between the quality of infants and adolescent attachment.
• Most of the assessment methods rely on self-report to assess quality of relationships -> decreases validity, demand characteristics
• Retrospective data, looking back in adulthood at childhood relationships with a primary attachment figure may cause recollection problems -> decreases validity

Question 12

Weakness: research is correlated

Answer 12

• Correlation, therefore we cannot claim the relationship between early attachment and later love styles is one of cause and effect. It could be innate temperament.
• Temperament hypothesis -> this may affect their issues with relationships later in life -> temperament is an intervening variable

Question 13

Weakness: confounding variables

Answer 13

• Some studies do make assessments of infant attachment and follow up children, assessing their later development.
• However, these studies may be affected by confounding variables as parenting style and personality may affect both attachment and later development
• This means we ca never be sure entirely that it’s infant attachment and not some other factor that’s influencing later development.

Question 14

Evaluation extra: Clark and Clark

Answer 14

• The influence of infant attachment on later relationships are probabilistic, people aren’t doomed to have bad relationships due to early attachment, they just have greater risk
• Bowlby exaggerated the significance of the early relationships on later relationships
• Could lead to self fulfilling prophecy
• Knowing someone’s attachment type may do more harm than good