Influence of early attachment EVAL Flashcards
one issue with the love quiz study and also the childhood studies is that they use self-report to gather data about attachment types and relationships.
This is a problem because self-report techniques can lead to SOCIAL-DESIRABILITY bias, and participants may not be HONEST because they want to be SEEN in a positive light.
This is an issue because it can become a CONFOUNDING variable and lower the IV of the study.
Therefore we cannot be sure we are measuring attachment and later adult and childhood relationships as we first intended to.
This information is gathered retro-respectively, which means that it requires participants to look BACK into their past for info on their relationship with their primary care-giver.
this is a problem because the data could lack IV as they may not REMEMBER accurately. There4 this could be a CONFOUNDING variable and then we can’t be SURE we are measuring early attachment as we intended to, and could ? the support these studies give to the link between influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships.
one problem is that there’s mixed research suggesting whether or not attachment type from childhood continues to adulthood. Zimmerman suggests that infant attachment types and quality of relationships to parents during adolescence are not related.
This is a problem because the IWM would predict that early attachment WOULD set a blue-print for later relationships, and relationships with parents during adulthood would RELATE to the quality of attachments in earlier life.
Zimmermans research has NOT found the link, and so CONTRADICTS the role of the iwm in terms of influence of early attachment on childhood and adulthood relationships.
there is only a correlation between attachment type and childhood/adult relationships, we cannot infer that the attachment type caused the later relationship patterns.
This is because there could be a THIRD variable which has had an EFFECT on both the attachment type AND the ability of the child to form relationships with others.
e.g. it could be environmental such as parenting style, or child temperament-their personality- which could affect both the attachment type and how they relate to others.
Therefore, we must be CAREFUL not to ASSUME that early attachment has a causal influence on childhood/adulthood relationships.
one issue is that this theory suggests we have NO freewill and we are determined to have later relationship problems dependant on out IWM which can be PESSIMISTIC.
This could be seen as a psychic determinism as both IWM and the research suggest that later problems with childhood and adult relationships are linked to ealry attachments and that the IWM is a blueprint.
it suggests there will be no freewill or choice in this negative outcome for relationships dependant on your earlier attachments.
This is problematic as it is very PESSIMISTIC and suggests that people would not be able to OVERCOME issues with their early attachments to have a more POSITIVE child/adult relationships.
