Influence of Early Attachment

Question 1

What did Bowlby suggest about a baby’s first relationship with their primary attachment figure?

Answer 1

It leads to a mental representation of future relationships
-creates the Internal Working Model

Question 2

What is the Internal Working Model?

Answer 2

-Our mental representations of the world, e.g. the representation we have of our relationship to our primary attachment figure.

Question 3

What is the importance of the Internal Working Model?

Answer 3

-This model affects our future relationships because it carries our perception of what relationships are like.

Question 4

What did Kerns (1994) say about the association between attachment type and future friendships?

Answer 4

-Securely attached babies usually go on to form the best quality childhood friendships whereas
insecurely attached babies later have friendship difficulties

Question 5

Who investigated the relationship between bullying and attachment type?

Answer 5

Wilson and Smith 1998

Question 6

What was the procedure of Wilson and Smith (1998)’s investigation?

Answer 6

-standard questionnaires in 196 children aged 7-11 from London

Question 7

What did Wilson and Smith (1998) find from their investigation?

Answer 7

-Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying.
-Insecure-avoidant children were the most likely to be victims and insecure-resistant children were
most likely to be bullies.

Question 8

What attachment type is most likely to be a bully?

Answer 8

-insecure resistant

Question 9

What attachment type is most likely to be bullied?

Answer 9

-insecure avoidant

Question 10

What two studies investigated the influence of early attachment on romantic relationships?

Answer 10

-Hazan and Shaver’ (1987)
-McCarthy (1999)

Question 11

Who conducted the Love Quiz?

Answer 11

Hazan and Shaver (1987)

Question 12

What was the sample of the Love Quiz?

Answer 12

620

Question 13

How many parts were there of the Love Quiz? What were they?

Answer 13

-3 parts
-the first assessed respondents’ current/ most important relationship
-the second assessed general love
experiences such as number of partners
-the third assessed attachment type

Question 14

What did Hazan and Shaver find about those that reported a secure attachment?

Answer 14

-were most likely to have good and longer lasting romantic experiences

Question 15

What did Hazan and Shaver find about those that reported an insecure avoidant attachment?

Answer 15

-were more likely to show jealousy and fear of intimacy

Question 16

What % of respondents in the love quiz showed each attachment type?

Answer 16

-52% secure
-25% insecure avoidant
-19% insecure resistant

Question 17

What did Hazan and Shaver find about those that reported an insecure resistant attachment?

Answer 17

nothing

Question 18

What was the sample in McCarthy’s study?

Answer 18

-40 adult women who had been assessed when they were babies to establish their early attachment type.

Question 19

What did McCarthy find about those assessed as securely attached?

Answer 19

Those assessed as securely attached babies had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships.

Question 20

What did McCarthy find about those assessed as insecure resistant?

Answer 20

-had problems maintaining friendships

Question 21

What did McCarthy find about those assessed as insecure avoidant?

Answer 21

-struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships

Question 22

Who studied the influence of early attachment on parent child relationships?

Answer 22

-Bailey (2007)

Question 23

What influence does a persons IWM have on their parenting style?

Answer 23

-People tend to base their parenting style on their IWM so attachment type tends to be passed on
through generations of a family.

Question 24

What was the procedure of Bailey (2007)’s study?

Answer 24

-Mother-baby attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation
-Mother’s attachment to their own mother was assessed using an adult attachment interview.

Question 25

What was the sample of Bailey (2007)’s study?

Answer 25

-99 mothers

Question 26

What were the findings of Bailey (2007)’s study?

Answer 26

The majority of women had the same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers.

Question 27

What are the limitations of studies into the influence of early attachment on later life?

Answer 27

-often assessed retrospectively
-confounding variables
-probabilistic

Question 28

What is the strength of studies into the influence of early attachment on later life?

Answer 28

-support evidence

Question 29

Explain the strength of studies into the influence of early attachment that it has supporting evidence?

Answer 29

-Reviews of evidence from studies linking attachment to later development have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional well-being and attachment to their own children.
How strong the relationship is between early attachment type and later development depends both on the
attachment type and the aspect of later development.
-So whilst insecure-avoidant attachment seems to convey fairly mild disadvantages for any aspect of development, disorganized attachment is strongly associated with later mental disorder.
-This means that secure attachment as a baby appears to convey advantages for future development while disorganized appears to seriously disadvantage children.

Question 30

Explain the limitation of studies into the influence of early attachment that it is probabilistic?

Answer 30

-This means that an insecure attachment does not inevitably lead to an unsuccessful romantic relationship because of early attachment experiences- it is more likely that many other factors are involved.
-By knowing someone’s attachment status there is
an opportunity to intervene and help their development, but this may cause us to become too pessimistic and create a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
-This means that understanding a person’s early attachment may not be very beneficial to their later life and development.

Question 31

Explain the limitation of studies into the influence of early attachment that there are confounding variables?

Answer 31

-Some studies do assess attachment in infancy (e.g. McCarthy), which means that the assessment of early attachment is valid.
-However, even these studies may have validity problems
because associations between attachment quality and later development may be affected by confounding variables.
-For example, parenting style may influence both attachment quality and later development.
-Alternatively, genetically-influenced personality may be an influence on both factors.
-This means that we can’t be entirely sure that it is early attachment and not some other factor that is influencing later development.

Question 32

Explain the limitation of studies into the influence of early attachment that attachment is often assessed retrospectively?

Answer 32

-Most research on the link between early attachment and later development are not longitudinal- instead researchers usually ask adolescent or adult participants questions about their relationship with parents, and identify attachment type from this.
-This causes problems with validity because it relies on the honesty and accurate perception of the participants
-It also means its very hard to know whether what is being assessed is early attachment or just adult attachment.
-This means that the measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded with other factors, making them meaningless.