influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships

Question 1

AO1 - relationships in childhood

Answer 1

According to Bowlby, attachment is the first relationship and provides a template for all later relationships - this is the internal working model.
In childhood (peer relationships) securely attached children find it much easier to make friends and are much more socially competent. They are less likely to report feelings of isolation and are much more popular than their peers, so are much less likely to suffer from / be involved in bullying. Whereas insecurely attached children often have friendship difficulties. They are more likely to rely on teachers for interaction and emotional support than other children. Insecure-avoidant children are most likely to be victims of bullying, and insecure-resistant children are most likely to be bullies.

Question 2

AO1 - relationships in adulthood

Answer 2

Parental relationships with own children - people tend to base their parenting style on their internal working model, so the attachment type will tend to be passed on through generations of a family.
Romantic relationships - people assessed as securely attached babies have the best adult friendships and romantic relationships. Whereas those classed as insecure-resistant have problems maintaining friendships, and those with insecure-avoidant attachment type struggle with intimacy in romantic relationships.
Hazan and Shaver tested Bowlby’s hypothesis that later relationships should be predictable from an individual’s early attachment style. They used a love quiz of nearly 100 questions, and found a strong positive correlation between early attachment type and attitudes towards love/ relationships.

Question 3

AO3 - evidence only correlational & deterministic

Answer 3

Evidence is correlational. Therefore cause and effect cannot be established. This is because it could be other factors that influence relationships later in life, not just a person’s internal working model as a result of their attachment type.
Furthermore, the internal working model is deterministic as it states that it will determine all future relationships. Therefore, it ignores the idea of free will in the formation of childhood and adult relationships.

Question 4

AO3 - questionnaire

Answer 4

The study that tested the internal working model and the idea that future relationships are determined by your attachment type used a questionnaire. Therefore, the research was easy and cheap to collect, meaning more participants were able to take part, hence it producing a large amount of data.
However, the questionnaire allows participants to lie without the knowledge of the researcher due to social desirability bias - participants want to appear in a more favourable light.

Question 5

AO3 - internal working model

Answer 5

Support by a researcher who studied 99 women and found that the majority of them had the same attachment type to both their babies and their own mother. Therefore supports the idea of continuity, suggested by Bowlby and that our internal working model formed by the first attachment to primary caregiver will contain our perceptions of what future relationships should be like.
However, low population validity due to low sample size so cannot be generalised.