Influences of early attachments Flashcards
Influences of early attachments
- Bowlby argued that the relationship between an infant and their mother figure provided the basis for later adult relationships
- the young vhild develops an internal working model from their first relationship, which consists of a view of themselves and other people as trustworthy or not
What are 3 things that early attachment influences?
- Childhood relationships
- Romantic relationships
- Parenting skills
Childhood relationships
Lieberman et al (1977)
* found that children classified as secure go on to become more socially skilled in friendships
* they have closer relationships with friends
Myron- Wilson and Smith (1998)
* used a questionnaire study on 196 children aged 7-11 from London
* found secure children were not likely to be involved in bullying
* insecure avoidant children were most likely to be bullied
* insecure resistant children were most likely to be bulllies
- insecurely attached children tend to be more reliant on teachers for interaction and emotional support
- type D seem to struggle the most to make friends with their peers
- securely attached children are more confident in interactions with friends
Evaluation
- Correlational research
+ Use of questionnaires
- Correlational research
- all research into childhood relationships is correlational
- this is a problem because it implies that theres a relationship between early attachment and childhood relationships
- there may be other factors affecting childhood relationships so it cannot show cause and effect
+ Use of questionnaires
- most research into childhood relationships relies on questionnaires
- this makes it easy to analyse because it uses close ended questions
Romantic relationships
Hasan and Shaver
* analysed 620 replies to a love quiz in the local newspaper
* quiz assessed their current and previous love experiences and attachment type
* it was found that those who reported secure attachments were the most likely to have a longer lasting romantic relationships
Evaluation
- Opposing evidence
- No cause and effect
- Social desirability bias
+/- Sample
- Opposing evidence
- criticism form Hazan and Shaver from Rutter et al found who found opposing evidence
- in their study of a group of people those who had experienced problematic relationships with their parents went on to achieve secure, stable and happy adult relationships
- No cause and effect
- the study cannot show cause and effect becasue its correlational
- Hazan and Shaver say that childhood relationships affect romantic relationships, but it doesnt consider other factors that affect romantic relationships e.g finances
- Socially desirability bias
- Hazan and Shaver used a love quiz as a questionnaire
- this self-report technique may be prone to social desirability bias where ppts may have have given answers that are desirable
- they may not give their true, honest but give an answer that is socially approved of
+/- Sample
+ Hazan and Shaver used a large sample size of 620
- However, the study is prone to volunteer bias because the people may have the time to volunteer and were interested
* it doesnt represent the people who didnt have time
Parenting skills
Bailey et al
* assessed the attachment of 99 mothers using the strange situation method
* the majority of women had the same atttachment classification to both their babies and their own mothers
* it provides evidence for the continuity hypothesis
Evaluation
- Strange situation
- Demand characteristics
- Small sample size
- Strange situation
- strange situation method has been criticised for not measuring attachment type, but instead critics argue it measures separation anxiety
- therefore it is not an accurate measure of attachment becasue it lower the internal validity
