Early attachment and later relationships Flashcards
Internal working model
This model proposed by Bowlby looks at how our childhood attachments influence adult relationships.
Example: If a child has a secure attachment to a sensitive caregiver, they are likely to see themselves as worthy of being loved. They are then likely to form future secure relationships.
McCarthy
Assessed 40 adult women who had been assessed as infants to establish early attachment to primary caregiver.
-secure attached infants had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships
-insecure-resistant infants struggled maintaining friendships
-insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships
Hazan and Shaver
Conducted a ‘love quiz’ in a local newspaper. Two parts: one assessed attachment type of each person with their parents, the second involved questions about current beliefs about romantic love.
The first 620 responses were analysed. A correlation was found between attachment type in childhood and person’s later views on romantic love.
Secure: happy and trustworthy relationships
Insecure-avoidant: feared intimacy and reported jealousy
Insecure-resistant: worried that they were not loved in relationships
Early attachments do influence adult relationships providing support for the internal working model
Long term effects of privation
Quinton et al compared 50 women who had been in institutional care to 50 who hadn’t.
Those who had been in institutions had parenting difficulties in later life.
This suggests a cycle of probation where those experiencing probation later go on to be less caring parents.
Parker and Forrest outlined a condition occurring in children permanently damaged by early experiences (e.g privation)
Symptoms include:
-inability to give or receive affection
-dishonesty
-poor social relationships
-involvement in crime
Not all studies support the internal working model of attachment
Zimmerman assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents showing little relationship between quality of infant and adolescent attachment.
This is a problem as it is not what we would expect if internal working models were important in development.
Most studies of attachments to PCG do not use observation or the strange situation
Hazan and Shaver and Bailey et al used self report to assess the attachment styles.
This creates a problem with validity of the findings. As assessment relies on self report the respondent needs to be honest for data to be accurate.
This implication that infant attachment type causes the attachment quality in later relationships may be inaccurate.
A third variable from the environment the child e.g parenting style may affect the attachment and the child’s ability to form relationships. Alternatively, the child’s temperament may influence the infant attachment and quality of later relationships.
Therefore, association does not mean causation as other variable may account for the difference found.
Theoretical issues exist with how evidence of how internal working model is gathered.
The internal working model is based on an unconscious process (internalised representations which we are not consciously aware of). Self report however relied on a conscious process.
Self reports therefore give us only indirect evidence about the internal working model.
