Early Attachment & Later Relationships

Attachment and Later Relationships

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Internal Working Model:

John Bowlby (1969) proposed the concept of the internal work model within his monotropic theory. He suggested that a baby‘s first relationship with their primary attachment figure leads to a mental representation of this relationship which then acts as a template for all future relationships. The quality of a babies first attachment is crucial because this template will then effect the nature of all relationships –  the persons childhood friendships, their romantic relationships and their relationships as a parent. Therefore, a child who has a warm loving relationship with the primary caregiver will then go on to have good quality relationships in later life. Children with insecure attachment types go on to have poor quality relationships. It is suggested that children with insecure avoidant attachment types will avoid being too involved and emotionally close in their later relationships, whilst those who have insecure resistant attachment types might go on to be controlling and argumentative in their later attachments.

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Relationships In Childhood

It is thought that the attachment type formed in childhood is associated with the quality of peer relationships in childhood. Securely attached children tend to go onto form the best quality childhood friendships whereas those who are insecure, tend to have friendship problems. Myron-Wilson & Smith (1998) found that bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment type. They assessed attachment type and involvement in bullying using a standard questionnaire in 196 children, aged 7 to 11 from London. They found that securely attached children were less likely to be involved in any kind of bullying, whereas insecure-avoidant children were most likely to be bullied, and insecure-resistant children were more likely to be the bullies.

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Relationships In Adulthood

It appears that the internal working model can affect two types of relationship in adulthood – romantic relationships and parental relationships with your own children.

McCarthy (1999) studied 40 adult women who had been assessed when they were babies to establish their early attachment type. They found that those who were assessed as being securely attached as a child had the best adult friendships and romantic relationship relationships. Whereas those adults classed as insecure-resistant as babies had problems maintaining friendships, and those who were insecure-avoidant struggled with intimacy in romantic relationships.

Hazan & Shaver (1987) conducted a study in which they used a questionnaire referred to as  a Love Quiz. They sent out a questionnaire within a local American newspaper and analysed the first 620 replies that that they received back. The quiz had three sections. The first section assessed the respondents current or most important relationship. The second part of the questionnaire assessed their general love experiences such as the number of partners that they had. The final section assessed attachment type by asking respondent to choose which of three statements best described their feelings. It was found that 56% of the respondents identified as being securely attached, with 25% insecure-avoidant and 19% insecure-resistant. Those who reported secure attachments were the most likely to go on to have good quality romantic experiences whereas the avoidant respondent tended to have issues with jealousy and fear of intimacy. Therefore Hazan & Shaver concluded that patterns of attachment behaviour appear to be reflected in later romantic relationships.

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The internal working model can also affect the child’s ability to parent their own children. Bailey at al (2007) conducted a study of 99 mothers, assessing the quality of their relationship to their own mothers using an adult attachment interview. They also also went on to assess the quality of their children’s attachment to them using the strange situation. Bailey et al found evidence for the continuity hypothesis, as the mothers who had secure attachments to their own mothers also had children who were securely attached to them,  whereas those mothers who appeared to have insecure attachments to their own mothers had children who had insecure attachments to them.

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Evaluation

1. One strength of the research into attachments and related relationships is that there is a lot of supporting evidence. For example, the research of Myron Wilson & Smith, McCarthy, Hazan & Shaver and Bailey et al. All the research has found that early attachments consistently predicts later attachment, emotional well-being, and attachment to own children. It appears that secure attachment as a baby appears to lead to later advantages for future development whilst disorganised attachment appears to seriously disadvantage children.

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2. However, not all evidence supports the existence of close links between earlier attachment and later development. For example example a study was conducted by Becker-Stoll et al (2008) which is referred to as the Regensburg longitudinal study. They followed 43 individuals from one year of age up to the age of 16 and found that there was no evidence for continuity. This means it’s not exactly clear the extent to which the quality of early relationships predicts later development.

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3. Another limitation of the research into the influence of attachment on relationships is that it is the research tends to be retrospective, as it is based on retrospective accounts of early childhood experiences. This is an issue as it relies on the respondent  being honest and accurate when self-reporting, or problems with memories becoming distorted, which can lead to problems with validity.

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4. Another issue appears to be with confounding variables. Some studies do assess attachment in infancy for example, which means that they are valid.  However these studies may also have problems of validity because associations between attachment quality and later development may be influenced by confounding variables. For example, parenting style may influence both attachment quality and later development. Furthermore genetically influenced personality may also influence both factors – the way that the parent responds to the child. This means that we cannot be sure that it is only attachment and not some other factor that is influencing later development.

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