Early Attachments and Later Relationships

Página 1

The internal working model plays a role in our later relationships. If a child has a loving relationship with a reliable caregiver they will assume this is how relationships are meant to be and so will seek out similar functional relationships in later life and show functional behaviours in later relationships i.e. not being too uninvolved or too emotionally close or being controlling/argumentative. If a child has a poor relationship with an unreliable caregiver they may struggle to form relationships in later life and show dysfunctional behaviours i.e. being controlling/argumentative, being too emotionally close or too involved.

Relationships in later childhood:

Attachment type is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood. Securely attached infants tend to go on to form the best quality childhood friendships whereas insecurely attached infants later have friendship difficulties. Myron-Wilson and Smith gave questionnaires to 196 children aged from 7-11 from London. They found securely attached children were unlikely to be involved in bullying. Insecure-avoidant children were most likely to be the victims of bullying and insecure-resistant children were likely to be bullies.

Página 2

Relationships in adulthood with romantic partners:

Hazan and Shaver - Love Quiz:

They analysed 620 replies to a love quiz printed in an American newspaper

The quiz had 3 sections. The first assessed respondents current/most important relationship. The second part assessed general love experiences such as number of partners. The third part assessed attachment type by asking respondents to choose which of 3 statements best described their feelings

56% of respondents were identified as securely attached with 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure-resistant

Those reporting secure attachments were the most likely to have good and longer lasting romantic experiences

Those reporting insecure-avoidant attachments tended to reveal jealousy and fear of intimacy

Página 3

Relationships in adulthood as a parent:

Internal working models also affect the child's ability to parent their own children. People tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model so attachment type tends to be passed on through generations of a family

Bailey - 99 mothers:

They assessed 99 mothers with one year old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure

They also assessed the attachment on the babies to their mothers by observations

Mothers who reported poor attachments to their own parents in the interviews were much more likely to have poor attachments with their own children

Evaluation:

Not all studies support internal working models. For example Zimmerman assessed infant attachment type and adolescent attachment to parents. There was very little relationship between quality of infant and adolescent attachment

Most studies of attachment are assessed by self report techniques like questionnaires/interviews. This creates validity problems. The validity of questionnaires/interviews is limited because respondents may not tell the truth

Association does not mean causality. There are alternative explanations for the association between early attachment and later relationships such as parenting style or child's temperament