Influence of Early Attachment on Later Relationships Flashcards
What is the internal working model in attachment theory?
It’s a mental representation of a child’s first relationship with their primary attachment figure, acting as a template for future relationships.
Who developed the concept of the internal working model and when?
Bowlby in 1969.
How does a secure first attachment affect future relationships?
The child is likely to seek out healthy relationships and behave appropriately in them.
What might happen if a child has a poor first attachment experience?
They may struggle to form or maintain relationships and may display insecure behaviours like avoidant or resistant attachment styles.
How is attachment type linked to childhood peer relationships?
Securely attached children tend to have better quality friendships; insecurely attached children often have social difficulties.
What did Myron-Wilson and Smith (1998) find about attachment and bullying?
Secure children were unlikely to be involved in bullying, insecure-avoidant children were more likely to be victims, and insecure-resistant children were more likely to be bullies.
How does early attachment affect adult romantic relationships?
Securely attached individuals tend to have healthier romantic relationships, while insecurely attached individuals may struggle with intimacy or maintaining friendships.
What did McCarthy (1999) find about adult relationships and early attachment?
Securely attached individuals had the best adult friendships and romantic relationships; insecure-resistant had problems maintaining friendships; insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy.
How is the internal working model related to parenting?
People often parent in ways that reflect their own attachment model, leading to attachment styles being passed down through generations.
What did Bailey et al. (2007) find about attachment across generations?
Most women had the same attachment type with their babies as they had with their own mothers.
strength of RESEARCH INTO ATTACHMENT AND LATER RELATIONSHIP
One strength of the research into attachment and later relationships is supporting evidence
We have looked at studies linking attachment to later develapment. Reviews af such evidence (e.g. Fearon and Roisman 2017) have concluded that early attachment consistently predicts later attachment, emotional well-being and attachment to own children. How strong the relationship is betwren 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, disorganised attachment is strongly associated with later mental disorder.
This means that secure attachment as a baby appears to convey advantages for future development while diserganised attachment appears to seriously disatvantage children.
limitation (1) of RESEARCH INTO ATTACHMENT AND LATER RELATIONSHIP
One limitation of most research into the influence of attachment is that early attachment is assessed retraspectively.
Most research on the link between early attachment and later development are not longitudinal (le. they don’t assess attachment in early life and then revisit the same person later in life). Instead researchers usually ask adolescent or adult participants questions about their relationship with parents, and identily attachment type from this. This causes two validity problems. First, asking questions relies on the honesty and accurate perception of the parlicipants. Second, it means it is very hard to know whether what is being assessed is early attachment or in fact adult attachment .
This means that the measures of early attachment used in most studies may be confounded with other factors making them meaningless.
limitation (2) of RESEARCH INTO ATTACHMENT AND LATER RELATIONSHIP
A further limitation of studies into the influence of early attachment on later development Is the existence of confounding varlables.
Some studies do assess attachment in infancy (e.g. MrCarthy on facing page), which means that the assessment of early attachment is valid. However, even these studies may have validity problems because assoriations between attachment quality and later development may be alfected by confounding variables. Far 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 never be entirely sure that it is early attachment and not some other factor that is influencing later development.
