Influence of early attachment on later relationships

Question 1

Internal working model

Answer 1

A baby’s first relationship with their primary attachment acts as a template for later relationships. A child whose first experience is a loving relationship tend to assume this is how relationships are meant to be and will then seek out functional relationships and behave functionally in them.

Question 2

Effects on childhood

Answer 2

Attachment type is associated with quality of peer relationships in childhood. Securely attached infants go on to form the best quality friendships while insecurely attached infants struggle with this. Myron-Wilson and Smith found insecure-avoidant children are most likely to be bullied while insecure-resistant children are most likely to be bullies. These findings are based on a questionnaire to 196 7-11 year olds from London). Insecure-resistant children are emotional people and not to scared to express how they feel and so therefore become bullies.

Kerns found that securely attached children have better relationships in later childhood than insecurely attached infants.

Question 3

Effects on adulthood – Romantic

Answer 3

Hazan and Shaver - Love Quiz tested the internal working model to see if infant influences adult relationships. The love quiz had 3 sections and was published in an American newspaper. It got 620 volunteer responses. Section 1 assesses the individuals most important relationship. Section 2 asks about experiences in love. Section 3 asked about feelings in relation to some statements. They found that 56% had secure attachments, 25% were insecure-avoidant and 19% were insecure-resistant. A positive correlation was found between early attachment type and experiences in love. Securely attached were most likely to have loving and lasting romantic relationships. Insecure-avoidant were more likely to report feelings of dislike in relation to intimacy. Insecure-resistant were more likely to have shorter relationships of 6 years compared to 10 years in secure attachment. This concluded that attachment type behaviours are reflected in adult romantic relationships because of an internal working model formed in infancy to guide expectations.

Question 4

Effects on adulthood – Parenting

Answer 4

Bailey (2007) assessed 99 mothers and infants using the strange situation and interviews. It was found that the majority of mothers had the same attachment type with their infant as with their mother.

Question 5

Evaluation of Influence of early attachment on later relationships (brief)

Answer 5

strength - support from Sroufe et al
weakness - validity issues with retrospective studies
weakness - deterministic

Question 6

strength of Influence of early attachment on later relationships

Answer 6

supporting evidence for internal working model. Sroufe et al conducted the Minnesota child-parent study and found infants who were voted high in social competence during childhood were more empathetic and popular. This supports the internal working model as infants who were securely attached will have expectations for friendships, which provides ideal platform for interacting with others during childhood.

Question 7

weaknesses of Influence of early attachment on later relationships

Answer 7

validity issues with retrospective studies. The influence of attachment is mainly assessed retrospectively and not longitudinally. Instead, researchers ask children or adult participants questions about their relationships with parents and identify attachment types from this. This causes two validity problems. Firstly, asking questions relies on the honesty and accurate perception of the participants. Secondly, it means it’s very hard to know whether what’s being assessed is early attachment or in fact adult attachment. Therefore, this means that the measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded with other factors rendering them meaningless.

this is a deterministic view point to say that all future relationships will be caused by the internal working model. It ignores the idea of free will and that individuals have control over their behaviour. Additionally, the internal working model is a hypothetical concept so is hard to measure and assess validity. Therefore we cannot gain a full explanation or understanding from participants as they’re unaware it’s happening. Furthermore, the research is correlational and therefore no cause and effect can be established.