EARLY EXPERIENCE ON ADULT RELATIONSHIPS
The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.
The influence of early attachment
This section focuses on Bowlby’s idea of an ‘internal working model‘, also known as a ‘schema‘. A good way to understand schemas is to think of them as a template we create to help us understand how things work.
Your early experiences of attachment formed between you and your caregiver (normally a parent), form a template (schema) for how you will go on to judge what other future relationships with other people.
This particular section focuses on how childhood and adult relationships are affected by this internal working model so we need to prepare for 3 possible questions which are:
Explain Bowlby’s Internal Working Model
Explain how the Internal working model affects childhood relationships
Explain how this internal working model affects adult relationships
What is the Internal Working Model?
Research into early attachment and its effects have focused on Bowlby’s concept of an internal working model which is closely linked with the Continuity Hypothesis.
This sees a continuity between early attachment types being reflected in later relationships in both childhood and adulthood relationships. Bowlby’s Internal Working Model is similar to the concept of a Schema or “template”.
He proposed infants had an innate tendency to form attachments with one particular caregiver who was the most sensitive to their needs, usually the mother. Bowlby saw this attachment as unique and the first to develop as well as the strongest of all as it formed a model template of future relationships the child can expect from others, hence the continuity.
This internal working model created a consistency between early emotional experiences from the primary attachment figure and later relationships as it teaches a child what relationships are like and how people behave within them. This also helped children form an opinion of themselves and shaped their attachment types. This experience is then used to predict what future relationships should look like in both intimate partners but also peer relations.
Research from the Minnesota child-parent study found continuity between early attachment and later emotional and social behaviour. Individuals classed as securely attached in childhood were rated highest for social competence during childhood, were less isolated, more popular and empathetic.
Harlow’s research also demonstrated a link between poor attachment and later difficulties with parenting. Quinton et al demonstrated this generalised to humans and the lack of an internal working model means an individual lacks a reference point to form relationships with their own children.
Mental health is also believed to be affected by the lack of an internal working model. Children with attachment disorder have no preferred attachment figure and struggle to relate and interact with others which is evident before the age of five. This has been classed as a distinct psychiatric condition within the DSM.
The influence of early attachment on childhood relations
Attachment theory would predict that children with an internal working model shaped around a secure attachment style would go on to be more confident with their interactions with friends and people. Research evidence from numerous studies (Wippman (1979), Willie (1986) and Lieberman (1977) et al) all support this with secure attachment styles being associated with closer friendships and greater emotional and social competence into adolescence. Hartup et al (1993) suggested this was due to securely attached children engaging in social interactions with other children more hence they become popular.
Children with an internal working model shaped around an insecure-attachment type have in contrast found to be more reliant on teachers for emotional support and interaction (Fleeson et al 1986). Alpern et al (1993) conducted a longitudinal study and found the attachment types of children at 18 months was the best predictor of problematic relationships at the age of 5 years again showing consistency between early attachment and later childhood relationships.
Belsky et al (1992) found securely attached children aged 3-5 were more curious, competent and self-confident than children not securely attached. They also got along better in their peer relationships with other children and were more likely to form close friendships too. This shows a positive correlation between secure attachment encouraging competency in peer relationships as well as personal development during childhood.
The influence of early attachment on adult relationships
Research evidence suggests adult relationships are also shaped by early attachment. Harlow’s research with Rhesus monkeys highlighted how poor attachment early on could translate into poorer parenting with monkeys themselves. Quinton et al (1984) found mothers raised in institutional care (which negatively affected their attachment styles) were more likely to struggle as parents themselves. It is believed that this lack of an internal working model (due to no parental figure within institutions) provides no template to subsequently base their own parenting on for their own children.
Hazan and Shaver (1987) investigated the effects of attachment on intimate adult relationships. A “love quiz” was placed in a local newspaper and respondents were asked which of the three descriptions best described their feelings about romantic relationships.
The descriptions related to being either securely-attached, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant for their current adult attachment style. Participants also completed a checklist regarding their childhood relationships with parents to assess the same attachment types when younger. 620 responses from 205 men and 415 women were collected from people aged 14 to 82 years old.
The results found that attachment styles in adulthood were closely matched with what people reported during infancy with 56% classified as secure, 25% as avoidant and 19% as resistant.
Securely attached individuals had a positive Internal working model and conception of love and trust within relationships. Insecure avoidant-respondents were doubtful about the existence or durability of love and claimed not to need partners to be happy. Insecure-resistant expressed the most self- doubt and was most vulnerable to loneliness, followed by insecure-resistant.
This key study demonstrates how for the most part early influences into attachment have continuity into adult relationships.
Evaluating the influence of early attachment
A major weakness in the link between early attachment, the internal working model and later relationship experiences is it is all based on correlational data. Due to this, we cannot say for certain that early attachment types and later love styles are based on a cause and effect relationship as it may be that other variables in-between are influencing this relationship. For example, individual differences and innate temperament may be an intervening variable and influence how a parent responds to the child itself in the formation of their attachment style. The temperament hypothesis suggests the quality of adult relationships is determined biologically from innate personality. This temperament may then be the basis for how later relationships are conducted.
Another weakness in Hazan and Shavers study, as well as others which have investigated the link between early experiences and later relationships, is many are based on retrospective data. Participants are asked to recall their lives from when they were children to determine their early attachment styles and such recollections may be flawed and prone to bias based on their present experiences. Because of this such data may be inaccurate and lack validity in determining how early attachments influence relationships.
A strength, however, is longitudinal studies, such as one by Simpson et al (2007), have found support for a link between early attachment classifications and how this influences later relationships. Infants assessed as securely attached at the age of one were rated as having higher social competence as children when aged 16. They were also more expressive and emotionally attached to their partners and this supports the notion that early attachment type does predict later adult relationships.
Research into how early attachment influences later relationships is overly deterministic as it assumes early childhood attachment types are fixed into adulthood. Also, the assumption that those who are insecurely attached at the age of one are definitively going to experience emotional unhappiness in relationships as adults is clearly incorrect. Researchers have found many cases where people who were not securely attached as infants go on to lead happy adult relationships later in life. Simpson et al (2007) himself concluded himself that the past does not unalterably determine a persons future and many factors may intervene to influence later attachment.
Wood et al (2003) offered an alternative view which undermined the role attachments having continuity in later life. He believed that the quality of the relationship is dependent on the attachment styles of both individuals. He proposed insecurely attached people can have secure relationships if they were to find themselves with partners who were securely attached themselves. This may, in turn, influence their own attachment style to become secure and this is something which hasn’t been investigated; how one partner’s attachment type can influence the other.
A major weakness for the Internal working model is there is evidence from research studies to suggest it is not fully supported. Steele et al (1998) found only a small correlation of 0.17
between a secure attachment type in early childhood and into early adulthood. This is further supported by Zimmerman et al’s (2000) study which found that a child’s attachment type at 12-18 months was unable to predict the quality of their later relationships. In fact, nurture and psychological factors such as life events were a better predictor for this, for example, parents divorcing. The role of nurture influencing attachment types and further undermining the internal working model comes from Hamilton (1994) who found that securely attached children would actually later be diagnosed as insecurely attached if they experienced negative life events prior.Effects of Early Experience and culture on Adult relationships.
The influence of childhood on adult relationships
So far we have looked at how relationships form and maintain themselves. Now we are looking at individual differences, e.g., why some people are successful in friendships and relationships and other people are terrible (divorce, separation, continual disharmony etc.).
‘Attachment Theory is a school of thought that holds that everyone has a certain kind of internal attachment organization (internal working model) based on an evolutionary predisposition and the kind of parenting we received as infants and toddlers. In a nutshell, the theory is this: If a child's basic emotional and physical needs are met by a consistent, primary attachment figure, that child has a very good chance of growing up to love themself, to trust people, to trust love, and to seek out partners who actually help him or her recreate that familiar feeling of mother love. Attachment theorists refer to these lucky lovers as having an ability to "securely attach." A lovely picture, isn't it? Unfortunately, people who fall into this attachment category only make up about 20 percent of our American and UK population. The rest of us fall into one of three other clumsy categories where the dance of love will probably end in divorce or constant bickering and disappointment.’
Resources
DVD: Secrets of the sexes (love part three) see link on my wall
Books:
· Why Love matters: How affection shapes a baby’s brain. Sue Gerhardt.
· The Selfish Society: How We All Forgot to Love One Another and Made Money Instead by Sue Gerhardt
· We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver: ISBN: 9781846687341 also now on DVD as a film
· How Not to F*** Them Up by Oliver James
Background information
Basically this is revisiting Bowlby and Ainsworth (the strange situation (SS) from last year).
1) Remember, Bowlby said that if you were deprived of a permanent continuous Mother figure/attachment then you would become either delinquent or naughty or in the worst case scenario, a psychopath?
2) Ainsworth used the SS as a way of judging attachments in toddlers. She came up with three types of attachments: Secure, ambivalent and avoidant. A further category was added by Cassidy later on e.g., type D = Disorganised.
3) The theory we are now looking at focuses on how our childhood attachments will continue to affect us in terms of how good or bad we are at relationships. The only real difference to what you did last year is that we apply attachment experience to relationships not delinquency.
4) This theory is psychodynamic and evolutionary. Psychodynamic theory (in the crudest most basic explanation), it is to do with how severely we were cared for by our parents. I always liken psychodynamic theory to ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’; you can be parented too severely (insecure ambivalent), parented too little (insecure avoidant) or just right (secure). All psychodynamic theories are loosely like this (Freud, Bowlby, Oliver James, and Ainsworth).
5) It is also has evolutionary principles. Bowlby said that attachment had long and short-term survival value. In the short term, attachment stops babies dying. As they are helpless at birth, a mother’s love is vital then or she may abandon her baby. For long-term survival value see point six below.
So……….basically, the premise of what we are doing now, is that if you form a secure attachment as a toddler you will have good relationships later on and form great friendships aka the continuity hypothesis. This is because your primary caregiver will have given you a fabulous internal working model (You are able to love others because you were loved and you trust others because your primary caregiver was attentive, loving, predictable and trustworthy; your template (schema/stereotype) of yourself and others is good). Many Psychologists believe that the quality and pattern of adult relationships is related to the quality of childhood care. This theory is based upon John Bowlby’s attachment theory’
Attachment Style
Caregiver and infant behaviour
Adult Behaviour
Secure Attachment Style (Type B)
Picks baby up when cries but allows baby independence doesn’t molly coddle
Caregivers are responsive to the infant’s needs. Infants trust their caregivers and are not afraid of being abandoned. Does not use punitive discipline, and reasons with the child in a loving and affectionate manner.
Securely attached adults tend to have positive views of themselves, their partners and their relationships. They feel comfortable with intimacy and independence, balancing the two.
Anxious/Avoidant Insecure Attachment Style (Type A)
Leaves baby to cry it out
Caregivers are distant and don’t want intimacy with their infant. Infants want to be close to the caregiver but learn that that they are likely to be rejected. The parent is demanding, but unresponsive to the child, tends to use punitive and harsh punishment, physical enforcement, reprimands, and prohibitive interventions
Anxious -avoidant adults desire a high level of independence, often appearing to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient, invulnerable to attachment feelings and not needing close relationships. They tend to suppress their feelings, dealing with rejection by distancing themselves from partners of whom they often have a poor opinion.
Anxious/Resistant Insecure Attachment Style (Type C)
Overwhelms baby with too much attention is over bearing.
Caregivers are inconsistent and/or overbearing in their affection, Infants never know what and how their caregivers will respond. This parent is generally described as lax, and inconsistent, and use withdrawal of love as punishment (Connor, 1980). They also tend to show their ambivalence about discipline by alternating praise and punishment (Baumrind, 1967). Similarly, mothers of ambivalently attached children are described as lacking in responsiveness and sensitivity to their children, and as being either too lenient or too controlling of their child
Anxious-preoccupied adults seek high levels of intimacy, approval and responsiveness from partners, becoming overly dependent in relationships. They tend to be less trusting. And may exhibit high levels of emotional expressiveness, worry and impulsiveness in their relationships. These children of have low self-control and self-reliance, and are very immature, anxious and immature.
Disorganised/Disorientated Attachment Style (Type D)
Abuses baby
The child's' need for emotional closeness remains unseen or ignored, and the parents behaviour is a source of bewilderment or terror. When children have experiences with parents that leave them overwhelmed, traumatized, and frightened, the youngsters become disorganized and chaotic.
Disorganized attachment leads to difficulties in the regulation of emotions, social communication, academic reasoning as well as to more severe emotional problems. Disorganised attached adults tend to mistrust their partners and are explosive, chaotic and abusing in relationships.
Research is now showing links between the attachment-theory derived concept of disorganized attachment, and the psychiatric diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In other words many people with disorganised attachment are very similar to symptoms in BDP.
Adult Attachment Disorder
Some types of temperament may make some individuals susceptible to the stress of unpredictable or hostile relationships with caregivers in the early years In the absence of available and responsive caregivers it appears that some children are particularly vulnerable to developing attachment disorders.
According to attachment theory, unresolved childhood attachment issues leave an adult vulnerable to difficulties in forming secure adult relationships. Patterns of attachment continue through the life cycle and across generations. New relations are affected by the expectations developed in past relationships. There is a strong correlation between insecure adult attachment and marital dissatisfaction and negative marital interactions. If an adult does not feel safe with others, he/she will tend to be either rejecting of their partner or overly clingy.
Attachment problems are often handed down trans-generationally unless someone breaks the chain.
A01 and A02 research
McCarthy (1999) used attachment data from infancy and found insecurely attached females were still bad at relationships. In short McCarthy, contacted females who has been classified as insecurely attached in childhood and then contacted them later in life about their relationships.
A02: Is it ethical to contact PPs who were classified as insecurely attached in infancy? Did these PPs even know their classification? Non experimental study, no control group so how did McCarthy know that females classified as securely attached were not also having problematic relationships?
Wartner et al (1994) showed reliability when he tested SS at 1 and the 6 years old in same kids. 78% had the same classification. The 22% difference was blamed on parental divorce, death etc. This shows the Continuity hypothesis is nurture and can change if parenting changes. How do you test SS at 6 though?
Psychologists who specialised in photo analysis are shown photographs of couples when they were children and when they are together as a couple. They believe that they can predict the outcome of any relationship by comparing these two images, mainly through body language interpretation. Their results show that children who looked unhappy as children could be classified as insecurely attached and that these people were more likely to experience divorce later on.
A02: Correlational
An easier but non-scientific way to test parenting styles is to take clear cut cases of child physical abuse (when children are identified as having been battered, sexually abused or identified as having being left for extended periods of time). When researchers look for children who have had such experiences and follow them up, there is certainly plenty of evidence for a link of becoming Borderline personality in adulthood. Common within families of children who later grow up to be Borderline are incest, child abuse, violence and drug addiction/alcoholism. Obviously, the link between becoming Borderline is not absolute. Not all who are abused go on to develop Borderline personality and not all who are Borderline personality were abused. Nethertheless the link is strong. Between 40 and 70 percent of borderlines report a history of sexual abuse. Between 60 and 80 percent of Borderline personalities have history of physical abuse or early parental separation through: divorce, emotional neglect indifference, rejection or deprivation).
There is increasing evidence that both borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) can be partly understood as damage to the attachment system. Research on primates has shown how severe are the effects of a damaged attachment system (Harlow’s monkeys). Distress symptoms produced by separation are similar to those seen in narcotic withdrawal and involve aggressive behaviour. Chronic stress in children can cause dysregulation of the normal stress response and maladaptive brain activities. Secure, avoidant, anxious-ambivalent attachment in childhood can now be measured. Insecure children show needless aggression; avoidant children can become either abusers or victims. Disorganized attachment is a mixture of avoidant and anxious-ambivalent behaviour and may lead to adult borderline personality disorder. Patterns of attachment are self-perpetuating and may be transmitted across generations. PTSD is a syndrome resulting from a terrifying state of helplessness. Its manifestations are similar to those seen with disorganized attachment behaviours. Individuals can appear to cut themselves off from memories and feelings that are too painful to acknowledge. As a result trauma can become organized at a sensory and somatic level which is difficult to change. PTSD appears to alter neuro=physiology and neuro-anatomy. Traumatic stimuli may produce abnormal brain activity and, for example, an inability to speak. ‘Flips’ of mental state have been recorded both in patients who have been through childhood abuse and in borderline patients.
Hazan and Shaver (1987)) analysed data from 620 people who responded to a survey in the Rocky Mountain News (a newspaper in Denver, Colorado) and from a college student sample of 108 students.
AIMS: Hazan & Shaver were interested in John Bowlby’ s idea that an infant’s first attachment formed an internal working model - a template - for all future relationships. They wanted to see if there was a correlation between the infant’s attachment type and their future approach to romantic relationships.
PROCEDURE (METHOD): to test this Hazan & Shaver devised the ‘Love Quiz’ which consisted of 2 components:-
o A measure of attachment type - a simple adjective checklist of childhood relationships with parents and parents’ relationships with each other
o A love experience questionnaire which assessed individual’s beliefs about romantic love - e.g.: whether it lasted forever, whether it could be found easily, how much trust there was in a romantic relationship, etc.
The Love Quiz was printed in local newspaper the Rocky Mountain News and readers were asked to send in their responses.
Hazan & Shaver analysed the first 620 replies sent in from people aged from 14 to 82.They classified the respondents’ according to Mary Ainsworth’s infant attachment types of secure, anxious-resistant and anxious-avoidant and looked for corresponding adult love styles -
FINDINGS (RESULTS): Hazan & Shaver found a strikingly high correlation between the infant attachment types and the adult romantic love styles.
CONCLUSIONS: Hazan & Shaver concluded that there was evidence to support the concept of the inner working model having a life-long effect. However, they did concede that not everyone stayed true to their infant attachment style and that some people did change as they grew older. So issues with reliability of attachment type.
A02 CRITICISMS (EVALUATION) of Hazan and Shaver:
Hazan & Shaver repeated the Love Quiz in 1993 and again found strong evidence for a correlation between infant attachment type and adult love style - though the correlation was not quite as strong this time. (In total the two Love Quiz studies involved 1200 participants.)
|t is important to bear in mind that Hazan & Shaver only established a correlation. Therefore, cause-and-effect cannot be assumed from their work.
In order to be able to generalize the results from a sample to a population, one must first define the population and then select a random sample from that population. None of these three studies does that. Both the Newspaper sample and the love test are based on people who *chose* to respond to the surveys, so there is the possibility of self-selection bias plus retrospective data. People who choose to respond to the surveys could be different than those who didn't respond to the surveys. Plus people were recording their memories of infant experience and such retrospective memories may not always be accurate. Plus, the respondents were self-reporting - and people do not always give truthful answers.
In the Love Test sample it's possible that people could take the test more than once and thusly bias the sample. Shaver, Hazan and Bradshaw describe the Hazan and Shaver (1987) College Sample as a ""Captive" university student group" It could a convenience sample of university students rather than a random sample of the population of university students
In a review of attachment measures, Garbarino (1998) noted that many researchers have reported low or inconsistent reliability scores when using this Hazan and Shaver’s measure (e.g. Levy & Davis, 1988; Shaver & Brennan, 1992 etc.).
However, a number of studies have supported the Love Quiz findings - e.g.: Judith Feeney & Patricia Noller (1990) found that securely-attached individuals had the most long-term enduring romantic relationships while anxious-avoidant types had the most short-lived and least-intense relationships. In a 4-month study of heterosexual relationships among Canadian undergraduates Patrick Keelan, Karen Dion & Kenneth Dion (1994) found that those with a secure attachment style expressed more satisfaction with and greater commitment to the relationship and trusted their partner more.
Among undergraduates involved in a romantic relationship, there is also a weak but significant tendency to be attracted to someone with an attachment style like your own, according to Kelly Brennan & Phil Shaver (1995).
General A02 of adult attachments and later romantic relationships
You will notice that much of the research in this area will use the strange situation (SS) classifications as a way of categorising people’s early attachment. Obviously not all people/participants had the SS done to them. This means that many researchers will have to get participants to categorise themselves by recalling their early attachment experience (Hazan and Shaver for instance). As you will discover, remembering early childhood attachments can be difficult. Either people lie (this is socially sensitive stuff) or they can’t remember, or perhaps want the memories to be good or bad. Basically, this method is very heavily subjected to demand characteristics and social desirability bias and therefore can give invalid result,
A trans-generational effect has been shown by Susan Sprecher, Rodney Cate & Lauren Levin (1998). They compared the love styles of 2 sets of students, one whose parents were divorced and one whose parents had stayed together. This second group was then divided into those whose parents had happy marriages and those who didn’t. Amongst the females with divorced parents and unhappily married parents, they were more likely to have an avoidant attachment style and less likely to have a secure one. They also generally had a less idealistic view of romantic love. Male participants whose parents were divorced were more likely to show lust as their preferred love style - this tendency was even stronger amongst men whose parents were unhappily married.
Not all research shows the continuity hypothesis. See pages 105 of Holt. Basically some insecurely attached people go on to have happy relationships
There are competing theories to why we are good at relationships: Social Learning theory (part of behaviourism/learning theory, e.g. we copy our parents if we observe they are good at interacting with people, i.e. it is observed as positively reinforcing.
Nature or nurture or both:
· Is there any evidence that childhood attachment is biological origins? Kagan (1992 suggested a temperament hypothesis as an alternative to attachment theory. Kagan noted that innate/biological temperamental characteristics which made infants ‘easy’ or ‘difficult’ had a serious impact on the quality of the mother-infant relationship and thus the attachment type. These innate temperamental characteristics (He suggested that we inherit sociable genes or neuro-transmitters (GABA or Serotonin) would influence the individual throughout life and thus love relationships. So it is the babies’ temperament rather than the parents’ that fosters good infant parenting.
· Other theorists suggest we could inherit genetic factors that make babies prone to emotional problems: for example one type of variation of the DRD2 dopamine receptor gene has been linked to anxious attachment and another in the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor gene with avoidant attachment. This suggests that the influence of maternal care on attachment security is not the same for all children, e.g., there will be individual differences. Children who inherit problem genes will be less likely to benefit from sensitive parenting. On a theoretical basis, it makes biological sense for children to vary in their susceptibility to rearing influence.
· Nurture effects nature. See above discussion on biology of attachment.
Biology of attachment (nurture affects a babies nature)
In addition to longitudinal studies, there has been psycho-physiological research on the biology of attachment. In psychophysiological research on attachment, the two main areas studied have been autonomic responses, such as heart rate or respiration, and the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Infants' physiological responses have been measured during the Strange Situation procedure looking at individual differences in infant temperament and the extent to which attachment acts as a moderator. There is some evidence that the quality of caregiving shapes the development of the neurological systems which regulate stress
1.
What really makes humans human is basically the massive post-natal development of the outer layers of the, the cerebral cortex brain (remember post natal development is a result of large brain, difficult labour and bipedal development). One of the first parts of this layer to develop is the pre-frontal section, which grows extremely rapidly in the first year or two of life. It is an area which is not fully formed at birth but which connects up in response to social stimulation in infancy.
Brain development, or learning, is actually the process of creating, strengthening, and discarding connections among the neurons. These connections are called synapses. There are not many at birth but they sprout rapidly in the first year of life and eventually form neural pathways that connect the different parts of the brain and organise its functions.
The pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain is known as the social brain, which is a shorthand way of referring to a range of areas in and around the pre-frontal cortex. We know from scientific research that this social brain area is activated when we are involved in controlling our emotions, paying close attention to other people and their social signals, thinking about feelings, and having empathy for others.
This human emotional control centre does not develop automatically. The social brain develops in response to the social experiences that a baby actually has. Neural pathways get laid down as a result of social and loving actual experiences, Babies need to have these experiences consistently, over and over again, to lay down the pathways, during the first and second years of life.
The first year of life is about making connections in the brain. But in the second and third years of childhood, that huge tangled mass of connections starts to get “pruned” - on a “use it or lose it” basis. Basically, babies keep the pathways that are most used and most useful in their particular social environment – and lose those pathways that have not been used that much. That means that if as babies and young children to live with angry, aggressive people, they will keep pathways that help them to be alert to anger and aggression, and if we live with people who are attentive to other people, we will keep the pathways that help them to be attentive.
Lastly, a there are so many factors that can influence view how good or bad we are at relationships: life events (divorce, parent illness/death, arguing etc.), Does gender inequality count? For example some countries have massive gender inequalities and are allowed to treat women/wives abhorrently (see earlier discussions, stoning, honour killings).
It is also so worth bearing in mind, that Psychodynamic and evolutionary theories are always: Deterministic and reductionist. YOU must say why. Contextualise.
Pre-determined to be bad at relationships if you have an insecure attachment. Not your fault but really blames parents especially mothers. See the film ‘we need to talk about Kevin.
Reductionist: reduces complexity of poor relationships to parenting styles. Surely others factors are involved?
Attachment theory is culturally biased, e.g. it is imposed etic should be emic. Remember the how the Germans and Japanese differed from the UK and USA samples in the strange situation? Can this theory be universal?
Also, not relevant to collectivist societies as they don’t divorce.
Attachment theory is also socially sensitive research.
As a result of attachment theory a daycare controversy resulted during the end of the twentieth century. This has highlighted attachment issues in daycare, including the need for relationship-building by assigning a child to a specific carer. Although only high-quality child care settings are likely to provide this, more infants in child care receive attachment-friendly care than in the past
The English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team, led by Michael Rutter, followed some of the children into their teens, attempting to unravel the effects of poor attachment associated with their early lives. Studies of these adoptees, whose initial conditions were shocking, produced reason for optimism as many of the children developed quite well. Although higher rates of atypical insecure attachment patterns were found compared to native-born or early-adopted samples, 70% of later-adopted children exhibited no marked or severe attachment disorder behaviours. Natural experiment.
Issues have been raised to the effect that the traditional two parent family model characteristic of attachment theory cannot address the complexity of real-life social experiences, as infants often have multiple relationships within the family and in child care settings. It is suggested these multiple relationships influence one another reciprocally, at least within a family.
Principles of attachment theory have been used to explain a whole host of adult social behaviours, including relationships. These explanations have been used to design parental care training, and have been particularly successful in the design of child abuse prevention programmers.
According to research on attachment mothers or primary cares should:
Having a natural, peaceful childbirth and bonding with the baby through rooming-in at the hospital
Breastfeeding the baby on demand as opposed to a schedule
Answering baby's cries quickly (not letting baby "cry it out")
Wearing the baby as much as possible using a sling or baby carrier
Having baby with you as much as possible (avoiding baby sitters if possible)
Having baby sleep in your bedroom (either in your bed or in a crib next to your bed) so you can respond quickly to baby and he can adjust to your sleep cycle.
Avoiding using material items sooth baby such as pacifiers, swings, strollers, etc. By offering yourself to comfort baby, baby learns to form strong human attachments.
This kind of parenting can be strenuous and demanding on Parents. One criticism of attachment parenting is that it can be very strenuous and demanding on parents. Without a support network of helpful friends or family, the work of parenting can be difficult. Writer Judith Warner says that a “culture of total motherhood has led to an “age of anxiety” for mothers in modern society. Sociologist Sharon Hays argues that the belief of intensive mothering" imposes unrealistic obligations and perpetuates a "double shift" life for working women.
Not Supported by Conclusive Research. Another criticism is that there is no conclusive or convincing body of research that shows this labor-intensive parenting approach to be in any way.
Psychology as a science: Difficult area to research as you can’t do lab experiments as totally unethical. Too many confounding variables to control: diet, friends, parent’s income, religion, bullying at school, genes, etc. Researchers must rely on natural experiments, or correlations. Hard to operationalise variables, how many times does a parent need to hug, how long does an absence need to be before it is detrimental? What if only one parent is nice? What if a sibling is horrible?
Discuss the Influence of Childhood on Adult Relationships
A01 Description of theory
Many Psychologists believe that the quality and pattern of adult relationships is related to the quality of childhood care. This theory is based upon John Bowlby’s attachment theory’
The core elements of Bowlby’s theory were that early parental care formed the prototype for future relationships through the internal working model. In short, Infants become attached to carers who were sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them, and who remained as consistent caregivers during a critical period in their development (from birth to two and a half years of age).
Caregivers' responses led to the development of patterns of attachment (e.g., secure, avoidant, ambivalent); these, in turn, led to the formation of internal working models, which guided the individual's perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and expectations in later adult relationships. This was supposed to have great relevance to how these individuals related to other people as adults and how successful they were in romantic relationships.
Bowlby (1973) proposed that when a child is confident that an attachment figure is available, he is less prone to fear and more likely to trust others. Moreover, if the attachment figure is responsive and protective while at the same time respecting the need to grow and explore the environment, the infant will develop an internal working model, which is a kind of relationship schema (stereotype) of themselves as deserving and dependable they will as a result see themselves as worthy of good partners.
However, if the caregiver parent rejects or ignores calls for comfort and attention and prohibits exploratory activity, the infant is more likely to construct an internal working model of himself as unworthy and ineffectual (John Bowlby, 1969).
Therefore, individuals with secure attachments will view other people in the same way, as their caregiver so will approach people with trust and optimism. As a result, they are more likely to succeed at relationships later in life.
Bowlby’s research focused primarily on poor attachment and delinquency. Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver extended attachment theory research on adult romantic relationships in the late 1980s. Four styles of attachment were identified in adults: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant. These roughly correspond to infant classifications: secure, insecure-ambivalent, insecure-avoidant and disorganized/disoriented.
Attachment theory is a primarily a psychodynamic theory. Psychodynamic theories evoke the importance of childhood and the relationships we had with our caregivers, believing that these shaped our personalities and our problems. For example, Bowlby observed that there were direct links between the pathology of a Mother and disturbances in the child.
Attachment theory also has strong evolutionary principles. Such as, the continuity hypothesis; this states that early attachment experiences can influence later adult relationships. For example, how avoidantly-attached individuals might fail at relationships because they are perceived as cold and detached by their partners. This failure at relationships could then affect the life chances of the individuals involved, e.g., a woman without a man in the hostile EEA might die from starvation.
Attachment theorists also think that the inability to form successful relationships affect an individual’s ability to pass on their genes as they would be less likely to be able to reproduce – no relationship = no baby.
And even if, for arguments sake, these insecurely attached individuals did stay together long enough to conceive a child, they as a couple, would inevitably part due to their inadequate IWM - which, was brought about by ineffectual bonding. This would in turn affect the life chances of the offspring, as survival for a baby in the EEA would have been difficult with only one parent.
A key feature of evolutionary behavior is that behaviors are only naturally selected and thus adaptive if they allow a species to survive long enough to reproduce. Obviously, insecurely attached infants will not meet these criteria. This is damning to individuals who are classified as such. It also begs the question of why insecure parenting is so predominate if it is so un-adaptive.
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A01 RESEARCH DESCRIPTION
Well known examples of research in this area are Hazan and Shaver’s correlational love quiz, and McCarthy’s (1999) correlation on Forty women (aged 25 to 44) who had experienced insecure attachments as children and Simpsons longitudinal study.
A02 Psychology as a science
Much of the research on the influence of childhood on relationships is non-experimental and mostly in the form of questionnaires (e.g,Hazan and Shaver and McCarthy but not Simpson) that are then correlated. Case studies are also common. This is because there would be too many variables to control in an experimental study e.g., how genes, diet, individual differences regarding discipline etc can affect a person's ability to relate to another romantically,
More importantly, true experiments would be totally unethical to conduct as manipulating IV conditions of good care versus poor care in babies is morally wrong.
Therefore, we have to be careful about applying a causal link with the results. This means that caution must be applied to the belief that supporting correlation results support the theory that childhood relationships affect adult romantic relationships. It could be as Kagan hypothesised, that babies are born with innate social and unsociable temperaments and this directs the quality of a caregivers' parenting style. So difficult babies cause insecure parenting (because they are grumpy) and not how the other way around as most commonly inferred.
Triangulation of many different types of non-experimental study would be needed before any causal link could be inferred.
A023 ETIC CULTURAL BIAS
The trouble with much of the research in this area (e.g., McCarthy, Fraley) is that it relies on the strange situation (SS) as the tool for measuring attachment. This tool has been shown to be ethnocentric and culturally biased as results are vastly different in countries such as Japan and Germany. This means that much of the research done can only be applied to American and British cultures.
A023 METHODOLOGY
INTERNAL VALIDITY: Moreover, many psychologists believe that the SS is not as valid today unless meta-analysis is done on all caregivers. Children today are rarely looked by only career (this is contrary to Bowlby’s ideas on monotropy). Therefore, we cannot assume that the participants in studies that used the SS had valid assessments of their attachment type. This means that findings are invalid and can not support the theory.
Even more invalid is Hazan and Shaver’ study as participants’ had to classify themselves by retrospectively analyzing their childhood experiences. It is highly unlikely that individuals could remember their attachment experiences especially as Bowlby said the most important period was before two years of age. Childhood amnesia, also called infantile amnesia, is the inability of adults to retrieve episodic memories before the age of 2–4 years, For the first 1–2 years of life, brain structures such as the limbic system, which holds the hippocampus and the amygdale and is involved in memory storage, are not yet fully developed. This means that participants in the study would have relied on their parental recollections of their infancy
Clearly, this is a sensitive area and as a result, many parents would want to appear socially desirable and present themselves as wonderful caregivers. So again, caution must be applied to results and interpretation of how childhood affects relationships, as the classification validity was methodologically unsound.
EXTERNAL VALIDITYPOPULATION VALIDITY: The sampling process in Hazan and Shaver’s study is also invalid as not only did it recruit Canadian individuals so was culturally biased but the PPS were self selecting. Maybe only a certain type of individual would read the Rocky Mountain News and maybe only a certain type of Rocky Mountain news reader would respond to the socially sensitive subject of childhood attachment, e.g., a reflective empathetic type. This means we can only apply the theory to a small sample of people.
Hazan and Shaver’s study did have some plus points though, a large sample and some significant results on replication.
A02 ETHICAL ISSUES
McCarthy’s study raises ethical issues, as contacting females classified as insecurely attached in infancy is very intrusive and unscrupulous. What if these women were unaware of their classification? It is unlikely that the researchers would be able to repair the damage/blame to the relationship between the females and their primary caregiver that this revelation might cause.
A02 ALTERNATIVE THEORIES
It is entirely possible that another variable caused these results. Marital and relationship dysfunction is not rare in western society. 40% of marriages end and one could assume a proportion of intact marriages are unhappy. Surely, childhood experiences are not solely to blame then. Modern living is very stressful and illness, loss of attraction, lacks of rewards for example, may be contributory.
A02 ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
This theory assumes that relationship longevity is the norm. Yet, evolutionary theory (ET) and statistics on relationship duration in the west would suggest otherwise. For example, couples only needed to stay together in the EEA long enough for the Mother to sustain herself and her child approximately two years. This could have been possible when the child was no longer reliant on the Mother, e.g., when it had stopped breast feeding. So perhaps relationship breakdown is the norm. Moreover, many ET theorists suggest polygamy was the norm so where does this leave attachment theory with its emphasis on monogamy and trust?
A02 GENDER BIAS
This theory is beta biased, as it does not distinguish between male and female childhood attachment experiences. Yet, one could argue that being classified, as avoidantly attached would have more repercussions for females. According to ET, females need males to invest resources in them to secure survival of themselves and their offspring. This may be less likely to happen if a female is avoidantly attached as her emotional distance may cause relationship difficulties in intimacy and sex. However, males that are emotionally cold and distant would not be prevented from spreading their genes, which according to ET is their purpose. This point also contradicts the idea that attachment theory has continuity as clearly it only has continuity or repercussions for females. Attachment theory has evolutionary principles so it is odd that the gender difference is not discussed.
A02 NATURE OR NURTURE
The fact they are maybe important gender differences is supported by the fact more males are classified as avoidantly attached. Avoidant attachment types are extremely independent, self-directed, and often uncomfortable with intimacy. They are commitment-phobes and experts at rationalising their way out of any intimate situation. Men are more likely than women to be avoidant types. There are many similarities between avoidantly attached individuals and alpha males which leaves this theory in a bit of a pickle as according to ET, females are thought to be better off with an alpha male. Some could argue that testosterone may be a contributor in avoidantly attached individuals, which might explain why more males fall into this category. This suggests that attachment style may be nature not nurture, as surely caregivers are not more inclined to like girls babies. This means attachment style could be biological and the theory is wrong.
Despite this theory’s evolutionary principles, its focus is mainly on nurture. Yet current research, e.g., Sue Gerhardt are now investigating how nurture can affect nature. For example, why love and sensitive parenting is essential to brain development in the early years of life. Especially in creating vital neural connections and a well developed pre frontal cortex.
More importantly though is the hormone cortisol. When a baby is upset, the hypothalamus, situated in the sub cortex at the centre of the brain, produces cortisol. In normal amounts cortisol is fine, but if a baby is exposed for too long or too often to stressful situations (such as being left to cry) its brain becomes flooded with cortisol and it will then either over- or under-produce cortisol whenever the child is exposed to stress. Too much is linked to depression and fearfulness; too little to emotional detachment and aggression. Children of alcoholics have a raised cortisol level, as do children of much stressed mothers.
These findings support the theory that quality of care can affect relationships but not because of an internal working model but more because, early care can affect early brain development and lead to life long changes in the brain chemistry and structure.
A02 DETERMINISM
This theory is deterministic it suggests that individuals that have had poor attachment experiences are unable to form successful relationships. This is clearly not true, as research has shown that people can overcome adversity. This means that this theory needs to include other approaches. Indeed, individual differences in genes may be contributory. Some individuals may have inherited less Serotonin making them more difficult babies and harder to bond with.
At least this theory does not blame the individual for problems with their personality but if individuals think their fate is inevitable; they may not bother trying to change their insecure attachment making relationships difficulties lifelong.
A02 SOCIALLY SENSITIVE RESEARCH
This theory is negative as it blames parents, although Bowlby and others stressed primary caregiver rather than Mother, critics have still labeled this theory as misogynistic as ultimately Mothers are the primary caregiver and are the ones who feel the burden of blame for having an insecurely attached child.
This theory has many real life applications for social policy. It has massive implications for the current government guidelines on childcare ratios in nurseries. It also has potential for teaching vulnerable parents how to bond with their babies. Cleary both these applications have long term benefits for society.
.The Influence Of Early Attachment
This section is new and focuses on Bowlby’s idea of an internal working model (also known as a schema). A good way to understand schema’s is to think of them as a “template”. Your early experiences of attachment form a “template” for how you will judge future relationships on and “Schema” is just a fancy way of describing this template you compare with. The specification focuses on how childhood and adult relationships are affected so our essay will focus on this. The question is likely to either ask you to explain the role of the internal working model on childhood/adult relationships or research into how early attachment affects childhood/adult relationships.
Describe/Outline Research (AO1) IWM
Research into early attachment and its affects have focused on Bowlby’s concept of an internal working model (IWM) which is closely linked with The Continuity Hypothesis. This see’s a continuity between early attachment types being reflected in later relationships in both childhood and adulthood relationships. Bowlby’s IWM is similar to the concept of a Schema or “template”. He proposed infants had an innate tendency to form attachments with one particular caregiver who was the most sensitive to their needs, usually the mother. Bowlby saw this attachment as unique and the first to develop as well as the strongest of all as it formed a model template of future relationships the child can expect from others, hence the continuity. This Internal working model created a consistency between early emotional experiences from the primary attachment figure and later relationships as it teaches a child what relationships are like and how people behave within them. This also helped children form an opinion of themselves and shaped their attachment types. This experience is then used to predict what future relationships should look like in both intimate partners but also peer relations.
Childhood Relationships AO1
Attachment theory would predict that children with an internal working model shaped around a secure attachment style would go on to be more confident with their interactions with friends and people. Research evidence from numerous studies (Wippman (1979), Willie (1986) and Lieberman (1977) et al) all support this with secure attachment styles being associated with closer friendships and greater emotional and social competence into adolescence. Hartup et al (1993) suggested this was due to securely attached children engaging in social interactions with other children more hence they become popular.
Children with an IWM shaped around an insecure-attachment type have in contrast found to be more reliant on teachers for emotional support and interaction (Fleeson et al 1986). Alpern et al (1993) conducted a longitudinal study and found the attachment types of children at 18 months was the best predictor of problematic relationships at the age of 5 years again showing consistency between early attachment and later childhood relationships.
Belsky et al (1992) found securely attached children aged 3-5 were more curious, competent and self-confident than children not securely attached. They also got along better in their peer relationships with other children and were more likely to form close friendships too. This shows a positive correlation between secure attachment encouraging competency in peer relationships as well personal development during childhood.
Adult Relationships AO1
Research evidence suggests adult relationships are also shaped by early attachment. Harlow’s research with Rhesus monkeys highlighted how poor attachment early on could translate into poorer parenting with monkeys themselves. Quinton et al (1984) found mothers raised in institutional care (which negatively affected their attachment styles) were more likely to struggle as parents themselves. It is believed that this lack of an internal working model (due to no parental figure within institutions) provides no template to subsequently base their own parenting on for their own children.
Hazan and Shaver (1987) investigated the effects of attachment on intimate adult relationships. A “love quiz” was placed in a local newspaper and respondents were asked which of the three descriptions best described their feelings about romantic relationships. The descriptions related to being either securely-attached, insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant for their current adult attachment style. Participants also completed a checklist regarding their childhood relationships with parents to assess the same attachment types when younger. 620 responses from 205 men and 415 women were collected from people aged 14 to 82 years old. The results found that attachment styles in adulthood were closely matched with what people reported during infancy with 56% classified as secure, 25% as avoidant and 19% as resistant. Securely attached individuals had a positive Internal working model and conception of love and trust within relationships. Insecure avoidant-respondents were doubtful about the existence or durability of love and claimed not to need partners to be happy. Insecure-resistant expressed the most selfdoubt and was most vulnerable to loneliness, followed by insecure-resistant.
This key study demonstrates how for the most part early influences into attachment have continuity into adult relationships.
Evaluation AO2
A major weakness in the link between early attachment, the internal working model and later relationship experiences is it is all based on correlational data. Due to this we cannot say for certain that early attachment types and later love styles are based on a cause and effect relationship as it may be that other variables in-between are influencing this relationship. For example individual differences and innate temperament may be an intervening variable and influence how a parent responds to the child itself in the formation of their attachment style. The temperament hypothesis suggests the quality of adult relationships is determined biologically from innate personality. This temperament may then be the basis for how later relationships are conducted.
Another weakness in Hazan and Shavers study as well as others which have investigated the link between early experiences and later relationships is many are based on retrospective data. Participants are asked to recall their lives from when they were children to determine their early attachment styles and such recollections may be flawed and prone to bias based on their present experiences. Because of this such data may be inaccurate and lack validity in determining how early attachments influence relationships. A strength however is longitudinal studies, such as one by Simpson et al (2007), have found support for a link between early attachment classifications and how this influences later relationships. Infants assessed as securely attached at the age of one were rated as having higher social competence as children when aged 16. They were also more expressive and emotionally attached to their partners and this supports the notion that early attachment type does predict later adult relationships.
Research into how early attachment influences later relationships is overly deterministic as they assume early childhood attachment types are fixed into adulthood. Also the assumption that those who are insecurely attached at the age of one are definitively going to experience emotional unhappiness in relationships as adults is clearly incorrect. Researchers have found many cases where people who were not securely attached as infants go on to lead happy adult relationships later in life. Simpson et al (2007) himself concluded himself that the past does not unalterably determine a persons future and many factors may intervene to influence later attachment.
Wood et al (2003) offered an alternative view which undermined the role attachments having continuity in later life. He believed that the quality of the relationship is dependent on the attachment styles of both individuals. He proposed insecurely attached people can have secure relationships if they were to find themselves with partners who were securely attached themselves. This may in-turn influence their own attachment style to become secure and this is something which hasn't been investigated; how one partner’s attachment type can influence the other.
A major weakness for the Internal working model is there is evidence from research studies to suggest it is not fully supported. Steele et al (1998) found only a small correlation of 0.17 between a secure attachment type in early childhood and into early adulthood. This is further supported by Zimmerman et al’s (2000) study which found that a childs attachment type at 12-18 months was unable to predict the quality of their later relationships. In fact nurture and psychological factors such as life events were a better predictor for this, for example parents divorcing. The role of nurture influencing attachment types and further undermining the internal working model comes from Hamilton (1994) who found that securely attached children would actually later be diagnosed as insecurely attached if they experienced negative life events prior.
