The Influence of Early Attachment on Childhood and Adult Relationships

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According to Bowlby(1969) later relationships are likely to be a continuation of early attachment styles (secure and insecure) because the behaviour of the infant's primary attachment figure promotes an internal working model of relationships which leads the infant to expect the same in later relationships.

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Childhood Relationships

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According to Bowlby's theory, when we form our primary attachment we also make a mental representation of what a relationship is (an internal working model) which we then use for all other relationships in the future, i.e. friendships, working and romantic relationships.

In other words, there will be continuity between early attachment experiences and later relationships. This is known as the continuity hypothesis.

According to attachment theory, the child who has a secure attachment style should be more confident in interactions with friends.

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Considerable evidence has supported this view. For example, the Minnesota study (2005) followed participants from infancy to late adolescence and found continuity between early attachment and later emotional/social behaviour. Securely attached children were rated most highly for social competence later in childhood, were less isolated and were more popular than insecurely attached children.

Hartup et al. (1993) argues that children with a secure attachment type are more popular at nursery and engage more in social interactions with other children. In contrast, insecurely attached children tend to be more reliant on teachers for interaction and emotional support.

An alternative explanation for continuity in relationships is the temperament hypothesis which argues that an infant's temperament affects the way a parent responds and so may be a determining factor in infant attachment type. The infant's temperament may explain their issues (good or bad) with relationships in later life.

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Adult Relationships

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Research indicates an intergenerational continuity between adults' attachment types and their children, including children adopting the parenting styles of their own parents. People tend to base their parenting style on the internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family.

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Research by Bailey (2007) found that the majority of women had the same attachment classification both to their babies and their own mothers.

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There also appears to be continuity between early attachment styles and the quality of later adult romantic relationships. This idea is based upon the internal working model where an infant's primary attachment forms a model (template) for future relationships. The internal working model influences a person's expectation of later relationships thus affects their attitudes towards them. In other words, there will be continuity between early attachment experiences and later relationships.

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Adult relationships are likely to reflect early attachment style. This is because the experience a person has with their caregiver in childhood would lead to the expectation of the same experiences in later relationships. This is illustrated in Hazan and Shaver's love quiz experiment. They conducted a study to collect information of participants' early attachment styles and their attitudes towards loving relationships.

They found that those who were securely attached as infants tended to have happy, lasting relationships. On the other hand, insecurely attached people found adult relationships more difficult, tended to divorce and believed love was rare. This supports the idea that childhood experiences have significant impact on people's attitude toward later relationships.

An alternative explanation for continuity in relationships is the temperament hypothesis, which argues that an infant's temperament affects the way a parent responds and so may be a determining factor in infant attachment type. The infant's temperament may explain their issues (good or bad) with relationships in later life.

This theory is accused of being reductionist because it assumes that people who are insecurely attached as infants would have poor quality adult relationships. This is not always the case. Researchers found plenty of people having happy relationships despite having insecure attachments. Therefore the theory might be an oversimplification.