Influence of childhood on relationships

Question 1

How are childhood experiences can affect later relationships intro:

Answer 1

Psychologists have suggested that our childhood experience impacts upon the type of relationships we later form in adult life

Question 2

Bowlby’s theory of attachment

Answer 2

The attachment system is related to the concept of the internal working model proposed by Bowlby. Bowlby theorised that later relationships are likely to be a continuation of early attachment styles (secure or insecure) as the primary attachment figure promotes an internal working model of relationships which will set the standard for later relationships.

Question 3

Attachment as a lifelong phenomenon

Answer 3

• Attachment behaviour throughout life
• Patterns established in childhood affect the quality of adult relationships through acquired internal working model.
• An individual’s childhood attachment style determines the way he/she approaches romantic relationships in adult life.

Question 4

How ignoring a child could lead to low friendship/ trust.

Answer 4

• Maternal sensitivity; initial cause of quality of attachment, the caregiver ignores the child.
• This would be classed as insecure avoidant
• Internal working model; view of self and others = sceptical about love; its existence or durability.
• Behaviour in adult relationships; Hard to find partner they trust, low friendship and trust.

Question 5

AO2: Bowlby’s theory of attachment evaluation; evidence regarding continuity from childhood to adulthood (Waters et al)

Answer 5

Waters et al. (2000) retested adults for their attachment style 20 years after having first assessed them at 12 months old. They found a high degree of stability, with 72% of adults receiving the same classification from adult attachment tests as they did in infancy from the Strange Situation.

Question 6

AO2: Bowlby’s theory of attachment evaluation; evidence regarding continuity from childhood to adulthood (Lewis et al)

Answer 6

Lewis et al. (2000) on the other hand reported much lower attachment stability from their longitudinal study. They compared the attachment classification of children at one year of age with their classification at 18 years of age. With a stability of 42%, no strong evidence for consistency over time was found.

Question 7

AO2: Bowlby’s theory of attachment evaluation; evidence regarding continuity from childhood to adulthood (Fraley et al)

Answer 7

• Conducted a meta-analysis of strange situation studies
• Prospective studies
• At 12 months and again at 9 years
• finding posi- tive correlations between early attachment type and later rela- tionships supporting the the theory.
• 0.27 Correlation = relatively weak.

Question 8

Summarise the extent to which there is continuity in attachment type from infancy to adulthood.

Answer 8

• Roughly 50% would’ve stayed in the same category just by chance anyway
• So as expected in Waters et al, but Lewis et al shows lower attachment type consistency
• Misted inclusive findings with a weak-moderate trend.

Question 9

AO2: Evidence on specific adult behaviour; Senchak and Leonard (1992)

Answer 9

Individuals with an anxious/resistant attachment as children have the most short-term romantic relationships, often entering into relationships quickly and becoming angry when their love is not reciprocated. Indeed, Senchak and Leonard (1992) found that anxious/resistant men acquired their marriage licences after shorter courtships than secure or anxious/avoidant men.

Question 10

AO2: Evidence on specific adult behaviour Campbell et al.

Answer 10

Better marital adjustment was seen in relationships where both partners were securely attached than when one or both partners were insecurely attached. (general finding)

Anxious/avoidant individuals are the least likely to enter into a romantic relationship: they are most likely to keep their distance and the most likely to say that they’ve never been in love (Campbell et al. 2005).

Question 11

Draw a conclusion about the evidence on specific adult behaviour as a whole.

Answer 11

• Adulthood attachment type is a decent predictor across the attachment types of adult relationships.
• Though these are clustered together in this way, they have no link between childhood and adult relationships (except Senchak & Leonard)

Question 12

Alternative (genetic) explanations for attachment (IDA); Kagans Temperament Hypothesis.

Answer 12

K hypothesis; We inherit genes from our parents- so we inherit attachment types

• Kagan explains how children are innately avoidant etc, so the parents will respond to the child’s behaviour, rather than their behaviour causes the child to have a certain attachment type.
• So the temperament hypoth would predict that there is continuity between adults love style and the infants.

Question 13

Alternative (genetic) explanations for attachment (IDA); How does Kagans hypoth relate to the Internal working model.

Answer 13

• IWM expresses that behaviour is learnt from the way parents treat their child
• Where as the temperament hypoth is innate (genetic)
• Favours nature to nuture

Question 14

What would we expect to find if the influence of genetics and IWM was tested?

Answer 14

• That because MZ =100% of genes and DZ=50% genes, they would have different attachment types
• But the IWM would suggest that they should be the same because they are bought up in the same environment.

Question 15

Studies testing the temperament hypoth against IWM (Waller and Shaver)

Answer 15

In this first behavior genetic study of romantic love, biometric model fitting reveals that in contrast to other personality and attitude domains, where genetic factors account for approximately 50% of the reliable variance and shared environment has little effect, individual differences in romantic love are due almost exclusively to environment. Moreover, the common family environment plays a sizable role in determining love styles, a finding compatible with theories stressing the importance of family inter-actions in personality development

MZs = 0.26 DZs = 0.25

Question 16

Studies testing the temperament hypoth against IWM (Picardi et al)

Answer 16

• Assessed attachment style with the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire in a volunteer sample of 677 twins (43% male) ages 23–24 years drawn from the population-based Italian Twin Register, who belonged to 244 complete pairs (46% monozygotic) and 189 unmatched pairs.
• heritability of the latent attachment security phenotype estimated at 62%. Unshared environmental factors explained the remaining proportion of variance.
• suggest that both nature and nurture contribute to individual differences in adult attachment.

Question 17

Summarise the findings from these two studies and relate them to Bowlby’s concept of the Internal Working Model.

Answer 17

• Contradicting findings- poorly researched field
• Researcher bias due to the fact the psychologists Shaver et al are developmental psychologists (supports IWM)
• Picardi et al are geneticists and it supports their theory.

Question 18

Freud’s Oedipal theory

Answer 18

Freud proposed the theory of psychosexual development, which expresses that during it the child’s libido is focused on a particular stage. Freud theorised that in all families tensions revolve around issues of love and competition. The phallic stage is when he or she desires sexual contact with the opposite-sex parent and perceives the other as a competitor.

Question 19

The male oedipal phase

Answer 19

According to Freud, because the mother is the most nurturant one her son initially attaches most closely to his mother and directs most of his affection towards her. He then develops sexual feelings towards her and wants monopoly of his mother over the father. The son will then develop castration anxiety as after he has discovered that girls have no penis he will conclude that he could also lose his from his angry father. He eventually re-channels his sexual energy towards other feminine figures and find partners closely resembling his mother or starkly different from her.

Question 20

The female oedipal phase

Answer 20

The girl is also thought to adopt her mother as her major love object, then she discovers that males have a penis and concludes that she has lost hers. She experiences feelings of deficiency and feels inferior. The disappointment motivates her to love her father. Freud theorised that the girl will develop fantasies of her father impregnating her as a compensatory function for the lack of penis. Like the boy, the girl enters a latency stage where she directs her penis envy to sexual behaviour in adulthood. This could mean that she seeks out males who are similar to her father or those that appear to be very different from the mother.

Question 21

Main predictions of Freud’s theory

Answer 21

• The choice of sexual partner is influenced by the Oedipal phase –to reflect similarities with the opposite-sex parent
• The link between opposite-sex parent and sexual partner should be more obvious in males due to the greater intensity of their emotional experiences as a child
• A woman’s sexual relationships should reflect her perception of her father rather than that of her mother (as she experienced disappointment in her mother)

Question 22

Research evidence: Jedlicka (1980)

Answer 22

Study that tested the hypothesis that individuals with inter-ethnically mixed parents are more inclined to marry into their opposite sex parents ethnic groups.

->Marriage records were scanned of persons in Hawaii who were of ethnically mixed parentage. The results significantly supported the hypothesis.
Conclusion: unambiguous pattern that was consistent with the psychoanalytic theory of mate selection.

(individuals who had been married twice were included in this sample (to test the consistency of the effect).

Question 23

Research evidence: Jedlicka (1984)

Answer 23

This time the study looked at first-time marriage. It again involved a sample of Hawaiian individuals whose parents were of mixed nativity.

->It was again shown at a significant level that ‘mate selection of sons is more influenced by mothers than is mate selection of daughters, and mate selection of daughters is more influenced by fathers than is mate selection of sons’.

Question 24

Discussions about Jedlicka studies:

Answer 24

• The theory states that they could be attracted to or starkly different from the opposite sex parent, so you would expect a mix of results: But the researchers must’ve chosen the majority pattern, that they will resemble them.
• Jedlicka doesn’t identify WHY people have those preferences
• While a naturally occurring experiment would seem the most strengthening, the theory states that they will find people attractive if they resemble their parents rather than marry them. Marriage is a much more complex relationship and many factors are involved other than just attractiveness, so for this type of theory a questionnaire may be more beneficial.

Question 25

Jedlicka: Summarise what this evidence seems to show

Answer 25

The evidence seems to show that there is a clear correlation in choosing a partner that resembles your opposite sex parents ethnic group.

Question 26

Jedlicka: Identify any significant methodological strengths / limitations.

Answer 26

• Perhaps a cultural bias; only one place and testing one place leaves the fact that the majority of the population will be Hawaiian and so are more likely to marry a Hawaiian anyway.
• Naturally occurring experiment
• Used married twice for consistency
• Ethnicity is an objective measure; but not everyone from the same ethnic looks similar.

Question 27

Jedlicka: Identify two alternative explanations for why people might be attracted to those who resemble their opposite sex parent.

Answer 27

-SLT; Observing a role model
-Genetics; inheriting preference from parents
Occam’s razor -> The findings of these studies could be explained in various ways. in the situation where you can’t tell the difference between theories, the most efficient thing would be to use the simpler theory. So in this case we can apply Occam’s razor to explain the findings of the study as Freud’s is the most complex and therefore the most unlikely.

Question 28

Research evidence: Aron (1974)

Answer 28

This study approached couples who were waiting in line at a marriage license bureau (Toronto). Asked to complete individual questionnaires concerning several dimensions (e.g. dominance, trust) of their relationship with their future spouse and how this applied to their parents.

• > It was hypothesised that they would depict their relationships with the future spouse as similar to their style to their relationship with their opposite sex parent.
• > The results supported the hypothesis at a borderline level for the men, but both the men and the women perceived their relationships with their future spouses as most similar to their recall of how they related to mother. (opposite for findings for women)

Question 29

Aron (1974) evaluation

Answer 29

• Doesn’t support the prediction of the theory; favours the attachment theory over the oedipal (could be used to discuss attachment theory comparison)
• Naturally occurring; several dimensions measured
• But only one license bureau.

Question 30

IDA: Lack of scientific testing

Answer 30

There have been very few systematic studies of this theory; the 3 studies here are considered by Fisher & Greenberg to be the only scientific studies worth including in their review of empirical tests of Freud’s theories. This means that it is hard to come to a clear judgement, because there is no general trend in the evidence to identify. This means that the theory has not been properly subjected to scientific testing.

Question 31

IDA: Unfalsifiability

Answer 31

The philosopher Popper famously criticised Freud for putting forward theories that were untestable, arguing that this meant that they were unscientific.

• > Freud predicted that males with unresolved issues from the phallic stage will be attracted to women who resemble or are starkly different from their mother. Again, it seems that Freud cannot lose and the theory is thereby unfalsifiable.
• > Popper believed that Freud’s theories were so vague that evidence could always be interpreted as supporting the theory. If this criticism is justified then Freud’s theory can be rejected, not because it is necessarily false, but because it fails to meet the requirements of a real scientific theory.