The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships Flashcards
What is the internal working model (IWM) according to Bowlby
- Infants develop a schema based on their attachment to their primary caregiver.
- This schema acts as a template for how relationships work.
- Such as if people can be trusted or if relationships are loving
What is the continuity hypothesis?
-It suggests that an individual’s future relationships will follow a pattern based on their IWM.
-This pattern includes an individual’s childhood friendships, adult partners and parenting relationships with their children
Hazen and Shaver AO1
- Argue an adults relationship type is a continuation of their infant attachment style and can be classified using Ainsworth’s secure,insecure avoidant and insecure resistant types
-They argue that children with a secure attachment will become more socially capable in childhood and adulthood than insecure types due to an effective IWM
What is Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory?
How long is the critical period?
-Suggests that children with a disrupted attachment with their primary caregiver in the critical period will have problems with social,emotional and intellectual development, adversely affecting the quality of adult relationships
Crit period is 2-3 years
What is (Kerns 1994) -The association of attachment types (3)
-Attachment types can be associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood.
-Securely attached infants tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friends
-Whereas insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties
What are childhood relationships?
Affiliations with other people in childhood including friends and classmates
What are adult relationships?
The relationships the child goes on to have later in life as an adult. These could include relationships with friends but mainly romantic partners
Hazan and Shavers (1987) “Love Quiz” (5)
-Hazan and Shavers (1987) “Love Quiz” 620 participants responded to a newspaper love quiz.
- Questions included:feelings on romance and categorised participants’ adult relationship styles into secure, those who looked for a
balance between closeness and independence, avoidant, participants who avoided intimacy and anxious, those who couldn’t cope well with independence.
-The questionnaire also assessed childhood attachment type. It was found that 56% had secure adult relationships, 25% were avoidant, and 19% were anxious, and there was a correlation between adult and child attachment types.
-Securely attached adults believed love was long-lasting, reported happiness in their relationships and tended not to get divorced. Insecure types reported more loneliness.
-These results suggest a link between early attachment and adult relationships.
McCarthy (1999) (5)
-McCarthy (1999) Studied 40 adult women assessed for attachment style using the strange situation as infants.
-It was found adults with long-lasting and secure adult friendships and romantic relationships were securely attached in infancy;
-Those assessed as avoidant infants had poor romantic relationships, while resistant had poor friendships.
-Both insecure groups were more likely to have lived with a deviant partner.
-These results suggest that early attachment style is linked to the quality of adult romantic relationships and friendships.
Practical applications of understanding the influence of early attachment. (4)
-There are practical applications to understanding the influence of early attachment.
- Schools can use this knowledge to help children alter their internal working model to address childhood bullying and loneliness.
- This early work adapting children’s IWM would also help children achieve relationship stability in later adult relationships,
- Potentially reducing costs to the economy related to divorce and mental health issues linked to relationship breakdown.
Evidence on continuity of attachment type is mixed (5)
- Internal working models predict continuity between the security of an infant’s attachment and that of its later relationships, i.e. attachment type in infancy is
usually the same as that characterising the person’s later relationships.
-Evidence for this continuity is mixed. Some studies, like that by McCarthy do appear to support continuity and so provide evidence to support internal working models.
-Not all studies, however, support internal working models.
For example, Zimmerman (2000) assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents. - There was very little relationship between quality of
infant and adolescent attachment.
-This is a problem because it is not what we would expect if internal working models were important in development.
