Early Attachment Flashcards
what is the continuity process
suggests that later relationships are likely to be the continuation of early attachment types. Eg child that had a loving relationship will most likely have that attachment type later on
Relationships in later childhood
Securely attached infants go on to form the best quality friendships they’re more popular, less isolated and more empathetic. while insecurely attached infants struggle and have friendship difficulties.
Can explained through the internal working model because securely attached have higher expectations that others are friendly and trusting, and this could enable
Relationships in adulthood study
Researcher studied 40 women who had been assessed when they were infants to establish their early attachment .
Securely attached had the best adult friendships and adult relationships.
Insecure avoidant: struggled with intimacy
Insecure resistance: difficulty maintaining relationships
Hazan and Shaver study
Wanted to see the correlation between the infants attachment type and future approach to romantic relationships.
Analysed 620 replies ‘love quiz’ and quiz was three sections: current or most important relationship, general expectations
Hazan and Shaver Findings
- 56% were securely attached, 25% insecure-avoidant, and 19% insecure-resistant
- They found a positive correlation between attachment type and love experiences
What type of romantic experience will secure attachments have
Most likely to have good and longer lasting romance
What type of romantic experience will insecure avoidant people have
tend to be jealous of and fear of intimacy
What type of of romantic experience will insecure resistant
tended to fall in love easily but found it difficult to find true love
relationships in adulthood as a parent
Ppl tend to base their parenting style on their internal so attachment types tend to be passed through generations of a family
Relationships in adulthood as a parent study
Researcher considered the attachments of 99 mothers to their babies and ti their own mothers. Mother-infant attachment was assessed durign the strange situation and mother-own mother attachment was assessed using an adult attachment interview. The majority of women had the same attachment type as their babies and own mothers
Undermining AO3: deterministic
The research, in suggesting that very early experiences have fixed effect on later adult relationships, is overly deterministic.
Relationships described the influence of infant attachment on later relationships as probabilistic i.e. ppl are not always guaranteed bad future relationships just because they had attachment issues - they simply have a greater risk of problems
Individuals past does not inevitably determine the future course of their relationships and by emphasisng the risk might lead to ppl being overly pessimistic abt ppls futures
not all studies support interal working models
POINT: not all studies support working internal models
EXPLAIN: Researcher assessed infant attachment types and adolescent attachment to
parents. There was very little relationship between the quality of both types of attachment.
END: not we expected if IWM was important in development and questions our significance in later relationships.
use self report method
POINT; Many studies assess the quality of infant-parent attachment using self-report
techniques years later, but this is a problem.
EXPLAIN: retrospective, can be inaccurate, may not be honest
END: Social desirability bias and retrospective recall may comprise validity of results
