influence of early attachment on later relationships Flashcards
internal working model
Bowlby suggested that a baby’s first relationship with their primary attachment figure leads to a mental representation of this relationship
this internal working model acts as a template for future childhood and adult relationships
the quality of a baby’s first attachment is crucial because this template will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships
a baby whose first experience is of a loving relationship with a reliable attachment figure will tend to assume this is how relationships are meant to be
they will seek out functional relationships and behave functionally within them such as not being to uninvolved or emotionally close - insecure-avoidant or being too controlling and argumentative insecure-resistant attachment
a child with bad experiences of their first attachment will bring these bad experiences to bear on later relationships
this may mean they struggle to dorm relationships in the first place or they may nor behave appropriately within relationships displaying insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant behaviour towards friends and partners
relationships in childhood
attachment type is associated with the quality of peer realtionships in childhood
securely attached babies tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friendships
insecurely attached babies tend to later have friendship difficulties
bullying behaviour can very predicted by attachment type
Myron-Wilson and Smith assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using standard questionnaires in 196 children aged from 7-11 from london
secure children were very blindly to be involved in bullying
insecure-avoidant children were the most likely yo be victims
insecure-resistant children were most likely to be the bullies
relationships in adulthood
internal working models affect two major adult experiences - romantic relationships and parental relationships with your own children
McCarthy study
40 adult women who had been assessed when they were babies to establish their early attachment type
those assessed as securely attached babies had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships
adults classed as insecure-resistant as babies had particular problems maintains friendships
insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic realtionships
internal models also affects the child’s ability to parent their own children
people tend to base parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations
Bailey - considered the attachment of 99 mothers to their babies and their own mothers
mother-baby attachment was assessed using the strange situation
mothers attachment to their own mother was assessed using an adult attachment interview
majority of women had the same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers
strength
research support
looked into studies linking attachment to later development
reviews of such evidence have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment , emotional well-being an attachment to 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
insecure-avoidant attachment seems to convey fairly mild disadvantages for any aspect of development
disorganised attachment is strongly associated with later mental disorder
means that secure attachment as a baby appears to convey advantages for future development
disorganised attachment appears to seriously disadvantage children
limitation
validity issues with retrospective studies
early attachment is assessed retrospectively
most research on the link between early attachment and later development are not longitudinal - they don’t assess attachment in early life and then revisit the same person later in life
instead researchers usually ask adolescents or adult participants questions about their relationship with parents and identify the attachement types form this
this causes two validity problems
first - asking questions relies on he honesty and accurate perception of participants
second - means it is very hard to know whether what is being assessed is early attachment or adult attachement
means that the measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded with other factors making them meaningless
limitation
confounding variables
some studies do assess attachment in infancy such as McCarthy which means that the assessment of early attachment is valid
even these studies may have validity problems because associations between attachment quality and later development may be affected by confounding variables
example - parenting style may influence both attachment quality and later development
alternatively genetically-influenced personality may be an influence on both factors
means that we can never be entirely sure that it is early attachment and not some other factor that is influencing ;after development
