Attachment

Question 1

Caregiver and Infant Interactions

Answer 1

From an early age, babies have meaningful social interactions with their careers. These interactions have important functions for the child’s social development.

Reciprocity is a form of interaction between the infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness, with both parties being able to produce a response from each other.
> this influences the child’s physical, social and cognitive development. It becomes the basis for the development of basic trust and shapes how the child will relate to the world, learn, and form relationships throughout life.

Interactional Synchrony is a form rhythmic interaction in which the infant and caregiver reflect the actions and emotions of the other and they do this in a co-ordinated way
> most likely to develop if the caregiver attends fully to the baby’s state and provide playful stimulation when the infant is alert and attentive.

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

> wanted to investigate whether the infants would mirror the actions and expressions of adults. They videotaped infants between 12 and 21 days old as they watched an adult experimenter perform facial expressions. Their responses were observed by observers who had no idea which gestures the babies saw. There were three conditions were; lip protrusion, tongue protrusion, and mouth open. They found that the babies imitated the facial expressions of the observer’s.

Strength&;weakness: lab environment, extraneous variables were controlled therefore the researchers could see that only one variable (independent) caused the dependent variable. However, this doesn’t reflect real life as real life isn’t as controlled and many other factors come in into play. Therefore, this study lacks ecological validity

Isabella et al studied 30 mothers and infants and their quality of attachment. High levels of interactional synchrony were associated with better attachment quality.
Weakness: small sample, harder to generalise, lack population validity

Strength: Observations on mother-infant interactions are generally well-controlled procedures. Babies don’t know or care that they are being observed so their behaviour won’t change in the presence of an experimenter. Has good external validity.

Weakness: It’s hard to know what’s happening when observing infants.
Many studies observing mother and infant interaction have shown the same patterns. What is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expressions. It is hard to be certain based on these observations because these actions could deliberate or unconscious. Therefore, we can’t know if certain behaviour is meaningful.

Question 2

Attachment Figures

Answer 2

An attachment is an emotional bond between two people in which each seeks closeness and feels more secure when in the presence of the attachment figure.

1) Parent-Infant Attachment
Schaffer & Emerson 1964 found that the majority of babies became attached to their mothers first. Within a few months, they formed a secondary attachment to another person, typically the father.

2) The Role of the Father
Grossman 2002 carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parent’s behaviour and the quality of attachment into their teens.
He found that fathers adopt a more playmate role so infants would prefer them during a positive emotional state.
This contrasts to mothers who adopt a more caregiving and nurturing role.

3) Fathers as Primary Carers
There is strong evidence that when fathers take on the role of being the main caregiver, they adopt behaviour more typical of mothers.

Evaluation

1. Fathers not being primary attachment figures
   Could be a result of traditional gender roles in which women were expected to be more caring and nurturing than men. Therefore, men don’t feel they should act like that.
   However, it could be due to women’s hormones which create higher levels of nurturing traits thus women are biologically prepared to be the primary attachment figure.
2. There’s no difference when children don’t have fathers
   The study of Grossman 2002 shows that secondary attachment figures had an important role in children’s development.
   However, MacCallum found that kids growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from heterosexual families.
3. Inconsistent findings on fathers
   Researchers are interested in different research questions. Some psychologists are interested in understanding the role fathers have as secondary attachment figures whereas others are more concerned with the father as a primary attachment figure. The former have tended to see fathers behave differently from mothers and having a distinct role. The latter have tended to find that fathers take on a maternal role. This causes difficulty in when psychologists try to determine the role of the father.
4. Field 1978 filmed 4-month-old babies in face to face interactions with primary mother caregivers, secondary father caregivers, and primary father caregivers
   - Primary father caregivers, like mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than secondary father caregivers. This is important in building an attachment with the infant.
   The key to attachment is the level of responsiveness not the gender of the parent.

Question 3

Schaffer and Emerson 1964

Answer 3

Aim: To investigate the age of the first attachment

Method:
> Involved 60 babies from Glasgow. 31 male, 29 female. Working class family background
> Aged between 5 weeks to 23 weeks
> They were observed every 4 weeks until the age of 1 and then observed again at 18 months
> The researchers asked the mothers questions about the kind of protest their babies showed in seven everyday separation
> Separation anxiety was used to measure the infant’s attachment. E.g adult leaving the room
> Stranger anxiety was used to assess the anxiety showed to unfamiliar adults

Findings:
> Between 25 - 32 weeks of age, 50% of babies showed signs of separation anxiety towards a particular adult
> 65% of babies had an attachment to their mothers first
> By 40 weeks old, babies have formed multiple attachments 30% of the time

They found that attachment is formed between 6 - 8 months

Evaluation

1. Culture Bias.
   Only babies from Glasgow were used which isn’t representative of the larger population, therefore, it lacks population validity
2. Social acceptance
   Mothers may have lied about the type of protest the babies performed in order to make herself look better or give desirable answers. Therefore, findings of this study aren’t credible or valid
3. Good external validity
   The study was carried out in the families’ own homes and most of the observation was actually done by the parents during ordinary activities and reported to researchers later. This means the behaviour of the babies were unlikely to be affected by the presence of observers.
4. Longitudinal study
   This is a strength because the same children were followed-up and observed regularly. This type of study has better internal validity than cross-sectional design (observing different children at each age) because they don’t have the confounding variable of individual differences.

Question 4

Stages of Attachment

Answer 4

this was proposed by the information collected by Schaffer & Emerson 1964

1. Asocial Stage
   The baby starts recognising and forming bonds with their carers. They don’t know the difference between humans and inanimate objects. However, they show preferences for familiar adults because they calm the babies down.
2. Indiscriminate Attachment
   Babies display more social behaviours in which they prefer humans instead of inanimate objects. They also recognise and prefer familiar adults. Babies usually accept cuddles and comfort from any adult and don’t usually show separation/stranger anxiety.
3. Specific Attachment
   Starts to display separation and stranger anxiety. They have developed a specific attachment (primary attachment). This person offers the most interaction and responds to the baby’s signal with the most skill
4. Multiple Attachments
   They usually extend their attachment behaviour to multiple adults with whom they regularly spend time with. By the age of 1, the majority of babies have developed multiple attachments.

Evaluation

1. Important interaction occurs within the first few weeks of their lives. The problem is babies have poor co-ordination and are generally immobile. This, therefore, is difficult to make judgments about them based on observations because there isn’t much to observe.
2. Conflicting evidence on multiple attachments
   Some psychologists believe babies form multiple attachments from the beginning. Such cultures are called collectivist because families work together jointly in everything - such as producing food and child rearing. However, other psychologists, like Bowlby, state that infants will form a specific attachment before they become capable of developing attachments to other careers.
3. A problem in how multiple attachments is separate
   Just because an individual leaves the room doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual is a ‘true’ attachment figure. Bowlby 1969 pointed out that children have playmates as well as attachment figures and may get distressed when a playmate leaves the room but this doesn’t signify attachment.
   This is a problem for Schaffer and Emerson’s stages because their observation does not leave us a way to distinguish between behaviour towards secondary attachment figures and shown towards playmates

Question 5

Explanation for Attachment: Learning Theory

Answer 5

According to learning theory, infants learn to be attached to their primary caregiver through classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
> Proposed by Dollard & Miller 1950

1) Classical Conditioning
Before attachment is learned, the infant gains pleasure through being fed.
Food is the unconditioned stimulus and pleasure is the unconditioned response. When the infant is being fed, the infant associates the person providing the food with the food.
The primary caregiver is the neutral stimulus, which becomes associated with food
When the attachment has been learned, the infant gains pleasure when the primary caregiver is present.
The primary caregiver is now the conditioned stimulus and pleasure is now the conditioned response.

2) Operant Conditioning
A hungry baby will cry because it is distressed. Feeding the baby makes it comfortable, and so crying is learned through negative reinforcement. Over time the pleasure of being made comfortable by being fed becomes associated with the primary caregiver. The infant feels pleasure when the primary caregiver is present therefore an attachment has now been learned.

3) Attachment as a secondary drive
Hunger can be thought of as a primary drive as it is innate, biological and essential for survival. We are motivated to eat to reduce the hunger drive. Attachment is thus a secondary drive learned by an association between the caregiver and the satisfaction of a primary drive.

Evaluation

1) Animal research
Lorenz’s geese imprinted before they were fed and maintained these attachments regardless of who fed them. Harlow’s monkeys attached to a soft surrogate in preference to a wire one that dispensed milk. In both studies it is clear that attachment does not develop as a result of feeding. The same must be true for humans, food does not create the attachment bond. (Learning theorists themselves believed that non-humans animals and humans were equivalent.

2) The theory ignores other factors associated with forming attachments.
The quality of attachment is associated with factors like developing reciprocity and interactional synchrony. If an attachment is developed purely as a result of feeding, there would be no purpose for these complex interactions and there would be no relationship between that and attachment.

3) Research in human infants shows that feeding doesn’t appear to be important.
Schaffer and Emerson 1964 showed that many babies developed primary attachments to their biological mother even though other carers did the feeding.
These findings contradict the theory as they show that feeding is not a key element to attachment so there is no UCS or primary drive involved.

4) Hay and Vespo (1988) proposed a new explanation for infant-carer attachments based on social learning theory. SLT is based on the idea that social behaviour is acquired as a result of modelling and imitation. Hay and Vespo suggested that parents teach children to love them by modelling attachment behaviour. (hugging them and other family members and rewarding them with approval when they display attachment behaviour of their own.

Question 6

Bowlby’s Theory into Attachment (Monotropic Theory)

Answer 6

• Bowlby viewed attachment to be an innate behaviour that has evolved over millions of years because it increases the chances of survival of young animals as it ensures they stay close to their caregivers and they’ll be protected against harm.

1) Critical Period
This is a time frame of opportunity in which attachment can occur.
Bowlby argued that there is a critical period between the ages of 0-30 months in which conditions must be right for an attachment to form, and if it does not form in this time then it is not possible to develop thereafter.

2) Internal Working Model
The mental representations we all carry with us of our attachment to our primary caregiver. They affect our future relationships as they carry our perception of what relationships are like and should be like.

3) Social Releasers
Babies behave in ways that adults find ‘cute’ and that release emotion, particularly in females. Cooing, gurgling, smiling and laughing create happy emotions in adults. Crying, distressed facial expressions and frustration create ‘care-giving’ emotions in adults that make them want to lighten the infant’s distress. This is an essential behaviour for survival as it makes adults want to care for infants.

4) Monotropy
Bowlby argues that infants form a single special attachment with one primary attachment figure, usually the mother. Their attachments may develop in a hierarchy below this. An infant may, therefore, have a primary monotropy attachment to its mother, and below her, the hierarchy of attachments may include its father, siblings etc

He put 2 principles to clarify this
> The Law of Continuity: the more constant a child’s care is, the better quality of attachment.
> The Law of Accumulated Separation: the effects of every separation from the primary caregiver will add up.

Evaluation

1) Evidence for the critical period of attachment formation.
Rutter et al 1988 findings showed that Romanian orphans formed attachments to adopted parents within their first year of life. Older children formed attachments more slowly, but are still able to form them. Therefore, there is probably a sensitive period for attachment formation rather than a critical period

2) Efe Tribe of Congo are breastfed by many women in the village but form a stable attachment to their natural mother.
3) Fox 1977 findings showed that infants in Israel are cared for by a metaplet, but return to their natural mother at night. The strongest attachment is to the mother despite most care is being provided by a substitute carer. Supports the idea of attachment having a hierarchy.

4) Main and Goldwyn argued that although some people had difficult childhoods and insecure attachments, many have gone on to develop positive and secure relationships in adulthood.
This disproves the theory, they are arguing that Nurture and the environment could influence or effect attachment. Which contradicts the theory that attachment is innate.

5) Bailey et al (2007) assessed 99 mothers with one-year-old babies on the quality of their attachment to their own mothers using a standard interview procedure. The researchers also assessed the attachment of the babies to the mothers by observations. They found that the mothers who reported poor attachment to their own parents were more likely to have children classified as poor according to the observations. This supports the idea that an internal working model of attachment was being passed through the families.
6) Deterministic. Assumes attachment will always occur during the critical period. Children will display social releasers and carers will respond. Real life cases have not shown this. For example, Baby P. He was neglected by both parents showing that social releasers will not always trigger an adult attachment system.
7) Feminist, Erica Burman states that monotropy and the law of accumulated separation places a terrible burden on the mother. This sets them up to take the blame for anything that goes wrong in the rest of their child’s life. However, Bowlby saw this as boosting the status of mothers by emphasising their importance.

Question 7

Attachment into Animals

Answer 7

Studies are often conducted on the basis that we’re a biological continuity between humans and animals. So, what is true for animals are also true for humans.
They are regarded as being more ethical than those studied on humans

Question 8

Harlow’s Monkey (1958)

Answer 8

Aim: wanted to study how newborn monkeys bond with artificial ‘mothers’

Method:
> reared 16 rhesus monkeys with 2 mothers.
> one condition: milk was dispensed by the plan wired mother
> second condition: milk was dispensed by the clothed mother.
> studies the monkeys for 165 days
> time spent with each mother and feeding time was recorded
> monkey’s stress and preference of mother was tested using a loud buzz sound.

Findings:
> both groups of monkeys spent more time with the clothed mother
> the infant would only go to wired mother when hungry and once full up, it would return to the clothed mother
> if scared, it would run towards to the clothed mother

Evaluation

1. Lab study, controlled environment, control over any EV, experimenter can see the IV caused the DV
2. Emotional and psychological harm, separation from their mothers, isolation fear and depression
3. provides valuable insight into the development of attachment and social behaviour
   at the time it was believed that attachment was related to physical rather than emotional care
4. Has good face validity, successfully carried out what he aimed to
5. Extrapolation issues
6. Opportunity sampling, Harlow collected the ones who were on site, saved researcher time, made conclusions faster

Question 9

Lorenz (1935)

Answer 9

Aim: to investigate imprinting in animals to humans

Method:
> Randomly divided a clutch of eggs
> Half were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment (control group)
> The other half were hatched in an incubator where the first large moving object they saw was Lorenz
> Field environment, independent group design

Findings:
> the geese in the experimental group would follow Lorenz everywhere
> the geese in the control group would follow their mother around everywhere
> when the two groups were mixed the experimental group would still follow Lorenz

Conclusion:
> imprinting can occur the same way despite the attachment figure

Evaluation

1. Generalising to humans. The mammalian attachment system is different to birds, therefore this leads to extrapolation issues. Mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young than birds.
2. High external validity. Field environment, high ecological validity due to no control over variables.
3. Unethical. Imprinting has irreversible effects and Lorenz isn’t a goose so cannot care sufficiently for the baby geese. Could lead to emotional distress to the geese.
4. Guiton et al (1966) found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves and would try to mate with them. The eventually learned to prefer mating with chickens. This contradicts Lorenz’s idea.

Question 10

Strange Situation; Mary Ainsworth 1970

Answer 10

This study was a controlled observation designed to measure the security of attachment.
The study was conducted in a room that had a one-way mirror so behaviour can be observed covertly.

> 100 babies from Middle-class American families

1. The child was encouraged to explore the unfamiliar room. This tested exploration and secure base.
2. A stranger enters the room and tries to interact with the child (caregiver is still present). This tested stranger anxiety.
3. The caregiver leaves the child with the stranger together. This tested separation and stranger anxiety.
4. The caregiver returns and the stranger leaves. This tested reunion behaviour and exploration secure base.
5. The caregiver leaves the child alone. This tested separation anxiety.
6. Stranger returns. Tested stranger anxiety
7. Caregiver returns and is reunited with the child. Tested reunion behaviour

Each episode lasted approximately 3 minutes.

Findings:
> Ainsworth identified three main attachment styles.
1. Insecure-avoidant (type A) –> 20-25%
They explored freely but showed little reaction when caregiver left. They did not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour
2. Secure (type B) –> 60-75%
Explored happily but secure base and proximity needed. Moderate stranger and separation anxiety.
3. Insecure resistant (type C) –> 3%
Huge amounts of separation and stranger anxiety. More proximity and less exploration.

> She concluded that these attachment styles were the result of early interactions with the mother.

Evaluation

1. The strange situation has been found to have good reliability. This means that it achieves consistent results. For example, Wartner et al (1994) found 78% of the children were classified in the same way at ages 1 and 6 years
2. Lamb (1977) found that infants showed significant preferences for their fathers over their mothers in the display of attachment and associated behaviours.
   This study shows that Ainsworth’s study lacks validity, as it is not measuring a general attachment style, but instead an attachment style specific to the mother.
3. The Strange Situation is the most widely used method for assessing infant attachment to a caregiver, Lamb et al. (1985) criticised it for being highly artificial and therefore lacking ecological validity. The child is placed in a strange and artificial environment, and the procedure of the mother and stranger entering and leaving the room follows a predetermined script.
4. The strange situation has also been criticised on ethical grounds. Because the child is put under stress (separation and stranger anxiety), the study has broken the ethical guideline protection of participants.
5. The study’s sample is biased - comprising 100 middle-class American families. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise the findings outside of America and to working class families.
6. Bick et al (2012) looked at inter-rater reliability in a team of trained Strange Situation observers and found agreement on attachment type of 94% of tested babies. This means we can be confident that the attachment type of an infant identified in the SS does not just depend on who is observing them.

Question 11

Cultural Variations in Attachment

Answer 11

The differences in norms and values that exist between people in different cultures.

Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (1988) looked at the proportions of the three types of attachments across a range of countries.

> Researchers located 32 studies into attachment which were conducted in 8 countries. Consisted of 1990 children and the data was meta-analysed.
Secure attachment was a universal norm across all 8 countries. The percentage varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in China
Insecure-Resistant was overall the least common type. It ranged from 3% in Britain to 30% in Israel.
Insecure-Avoidant was observed most commonly in Germany with 35% and the least common in Japan with 5%
Variations within cultures was 150% greater than variations between cultures.

Evaluation
> Eurocentric. The 8 countries tended to be Westernised societies opposed to Collectivist cultures. Findings from this study may be applicable to some countries more than others. Countries that were selected aren’t representative of thr target population as some countries from other cotinents were not used.

> Bowlby’s explanation for cultural similarities is due to the fact that attachment is innate and universal thus produces the same kinds of behaviours all over the world.

> Large sample. This increases the internal validity by reducing thr impact of anomalous results caused by bad methodolgy or very unsual participants (individual differences)

Simonella et al (2014) wanted to see whether the proportions of babies with different attachment types still matches those found in Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg

> Researchers assessed 76 twelve month old babies using Strange Situation in Italy.
secure: 50%
insecure-avoidant: 36%
insecure-resistant: 14%

This has lower rates of Secure attachment. They suggested it is due to the incrtessing number of mothers of very young children working long hours and using professional child care.

Evaluation:
> It was conducted in 2014 therefore findings can be appropriately generalised due to the change in culture compared to 1988.

>

Question 12

Maternal Deprivation Theory (Bowlby, 1951)

Answer 12

MDT suggests that the continual presence of nurture from a mother (or a substitute) is essential for a baby’s health, social and emotional development.

• Critical Period
  Bowlby states that the first 30 months of life as the critical period for psychological development.
  If a child was separated from their mother during the critical period then the psychological damage is inevitable.
• Deprivation
  The emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and their mother.
• Short-term Deprivation
  A brief temporary separation from the attachment figure. Short term deprivation only becomes an issue for development is if the child is deprived aka they lose the element of care.
• Long-term Deprivation
  Consists of prolonged or permanent separation from the attachment figure.
• Intellectual Development
  Children would suffer mental retardation and an abnormally low IQ

* Emotional Development 
Affectionless Psychopathy (the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others. This prevents the person from developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.

Evaluation

1. 44 Thieves Study (1944) Bowlby wanted to examine the link between affectionless psychopathy (AP) and maternal deprivation.
   44 teenage criminals who were accused of stealing were interviewed for signs of AP. Thie families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the suspects had prolonged separations from their mothers.
   Control group: non-criminal but emotionally disturbed young people. This was set up to see how often maternal deprivation occurs in the children who were not thieves.
   Bowlby found 14/44 thieves could be described as AP. Of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives. Of the control group, only 2/44 had experienced prolonged separations.

Bowlby concluded that there is a correlation between maternal deprivation and AP.

Weakness: Bowlby conducted and designed the self-reports himself. His presence and interpretation might have influenced the outcome of the research. Bowlby’s diagnosis of AP might have been distorted by researcher confirmation bias.

2. Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions opposed to those who were fostered, thus had higher standards of emotional care. This supports Bowlby’s concept of Intellectual consequences.
3. Furstenberg and Kiernan (2000) found that children experiencing parental divorce score lower than children in first-marriage families on measures of social and emotional development. This suggests that divorce has a negative effect on development. This could be due to short-term deprivation.
4. MDT has significant real life applications as they highlight the importance of positive attachment experiences. Greater stability in child care practice has been developed through daycare centres assigning caregivers to children and hospital visiting has been reviewed so that children can maintain contact with their parents.
5. Bifulco et al (1992) supports MDT. They studied 250 women who had lost their mothers through separation or death before they were 17. They found that the loss doubles the risk of depressvie and anxiety disorders in adult women. The rate of depression was the highest in women whose mother who had died before the child reached th age of 6.

Question 13

Effects of Institutionalisation

Answer 13

• Institutionalisation
  A term for the effects of living in an institutionalised setting.
• Institution
  Refers to a place like an orphanage where children live for a long, continuous periods of time.

*Disinhibited Attachment
Is a typical effect of spending in an institution. They are equally friendly and affectionate towards people they know well and strangers.
Rutter (2006) explained this as an adaption to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation.

• Mental Retardation
  In Rutter’s study, most children showed signs of retardation when they arrived in Britain. Most of those who were adopted before they were 6 months caught up with the control group by age 4.
  Damage to intellect can be recovered provided adoption takes place before 6 months.
• Rutter’s English and Romanian Adoptee Study (2011)
  the aim was to test to what extent good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions.

> Researchers followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans that were adopted in Britain.
Physical, emotional and cognitive development was assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15.
A group of 52 British children adopted around the same time served as a control group.

> Half of the adoptees showed signs of mental retardation and the majority was severely undernourished.
At age 11 they showed rates of recovery that were related to the age of adoption.
the mean IQ of those adopted between 6 months and 2 years was 86.
adopted before 6 months: 102
adopted after 2 years: 77

They concluded that the earlier the child starts receiving emotional care, the more likely they are to recover from the effects of institutionalisation.

Evaluation

1. These results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for. For example, orphanages and care homes ensure that a much smaller group of people play a central role in the child’s life.
2. Confounding variables. The researchers did not interfere with the adoption process which means that those who was adopted early could have been the most sociable ones.
3. Romanian orphanages had very poor standards of care and low levels of intellectual stimulation. The unusual situational variable means the study may lack generalisability.

• Zeanah et al (2005) assessed attachment in 95 children in 12 - 31-month-olds who had spent most of their lives in institutionalised care.
  > they were compared to a control group of 50 children who never lived in institutional care,
  > their attachment type was measured using the strange situation.
  > carers were asked about any unusual social behaviour

> 74% of the control group came out as securely attached
19% of the experimental group were securely attached
44% of the EG had disinhibited attachment compared to 20% in the CG

Evaluation

1. Methodology.
   Romanian orphans were randomly allocated to institutionalised care or fostering. This is methodologically good because it removed the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents.
2. Ethical issues
   No consent was given from the children.
3. Sample size.

Question 14

Influence of early attachments on later relationships

Answer 14

• Internal Working Model relates to a person’s expectations of relationships.
  The quality of a child’s first attachment is crucial because it will powerfully affect the nature of their future relationships.
• Relationships in later childhood
  Attachment type is linked with the quality of peer relationships in childhood.
  Securely attached infants go on to form the best quality childhood friendships. Whereas, insecurely attached infants tend to have difficulties.
• Relationships in adulthood as a parent
  Bailey et al (2007) showed the majority of people had the same attachment both to their mother and baby.
• Hazan and Shaver (1987) wanted to study the link between attachment and adult relationships

> they placed a love quiz in Rocky mountain news. The quiz asked questions about current attachment experiences and history to identify current and childhood attachment types.
the quiz also asked questions about attitudes towards love - an assessment on the internal working model
they analysed 620 replies. 205 from men 415 from women from a fair cross section of the population

> they found that attachment type in the present was similar to childhood attachment type
56% secure, 25% avoidant, 19% resistant
securely attached adults said their love experience was a happy one, friendly and trusting. They also tended to have a positive internal working model.

The internal working model shows the link between attachment and adult relationships.

Evaluation

1. Self-report method. participants may have lied about their experiences because of social desirability. Also, they may not be able to remember their childhood experiences clearly. Internal validity is lowered.
2. Biased sample. volunteer sampling obtained from a localised area in the USA. cannot generalise findings to the rest of the population. Lacks population validity.
3. Kagan (1984) suggested the temperament hypothesis. Infants are born with an innate personality. Those with a naturally friendly personality are more likely to form an attachment than those with difficult personalities. This could be a confounding variable in the sample.
4. Clarke and Clarke (1998) described the significance of the quality of attachment to be problisitc. They said people are not doomed to always gave bad relationships just because they had attachment issues.
5. Myron and Wilson (1998) assessed attachment type and bullying involvement using questionnaires in 196 children aged 7 - 11 in London. Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying. Insecure-avoidant were the most likely to be the victims and insecure-resistant were the most likely to be the bullies.
   This shows the internal working model influences behaviours and attitudes towards relationships with other people.