Early Attachment And Later Relationships

Question 1

Role of the internal working model

Answer 1

Bowlby’s internal working model (IWM) concept is similar to a schema, the infant learns what relationships and how partners
in a relationship are supposed to act towards each other. It is an operable model for someone’s relationships and attachment in the future.
Bowlby suggested that the quality of the first relationship effects all the tigers and a loving first attachment will lead time functional relationships in the future .

Question 2

Hazan and Shaver internal working model study method

Answer 2

Their aim was to see if attachment theory could help us understand adult romantic love
They predicted that there would be a correlation between adults attachment styles and the type of parenting they received.
And that adults with different attachment styles with think differently if themselves and their partner.

They placed a love quiz in an American small town newspaper, they analysed 620 responses (205M,415F) between 14-82 years of age.
91% where heterosexual, 42% where married, 28% where divorced or widowed, 9% where living with their partner and 31% where dating.
They where asked questions about attitudes towards love and about their current and last attachment experiences.

Question 3

Hazan and Shaver findings

Answer 3

They found that through both samples roughly 56% where securely attached, for insecure avoidant it was 23% for sample one and 25% for sample 2. For insecure resistant it was 19% sample one while 20% for sample 2.

In both samples the securely attached people described their relationships as happy, friendly and trusting.
Securely attached people found others trustworthy and held themselves as likeable
Insecure avoidant participants said they did not need love partners to be happy and tended to reveal jealousy and gears if intimacy
Both insecure types where vulnerable to loneliness with insecure resistant being the most vulnerable.

The percentage of adults in the different attachment types roughly matches those of children in other studies

Question 4

Behaviours influenced by the internal working model

Answer 4

Childhood friendship- securely attached individuals where rated as more socially competent later on in childhood as they where more open and empathetic

Poor parenting- Harlow’s monkey research showed that poor attachment can affect parenting later in in life, this is supported in humans by Quinton study

Romantic relationships- study by Hazan and Shaver showed the link between early attachment types and later relationships with securely attached individuals expediting longer lasting relationships

Mental health- a lack of attachment during the critical period would lead to no working model, children with attachment disorder have an inability to interact and relate with others and is caused by severe neglect or the frequent changing of caregivers.

Question 5

Evaluation of early attachment and future relationships

Answer 5

• ) the evidence is mixed with baileys study shows that attachment types continue diet the generations but Zimmermans study found little link between infant and adolescent attachment
• ) Many of the supporting studies use self report techniques which may mean they are not very valid, due to forgetting or social desirability bias.
• ) association does not mean causality, other factors such as parenting style or child temperament could effect infant and adolescent attachments suggesting that we can’t infer cause and effect just a relationship between the two
• ) The influence of early attachment is not definite as many people have poor quality early attachment and go on to have positive and intimate relationships later on in life while the opposite can happen to people who had a good attachment relationship so the influence is probabilistic but not definite