Attachment effect on later relationships AO1

Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis

• The nature of the relationship we form with our main caregiver in our first years of life shapes our future relationships in childhood and later into adulthood

• Attachment style reflects our attitudes in relationships, incl: Self-esteem, interpersonal trust, but mainly the internal working model

Attachment and childhood relationships

• According to Bowlby and Ainsworth, children’s attachment relationships in infancy will shape their childhood relationships with adults and peers

• According to research, secure attachment in infancy leads to the following childhood characteristics:

  • Closer peer friendships

  • Greater emotional and social competence in adolescence

  • More reciprocal friendships

Secure attachment

• Childhood: Good quality trusting friendships

• Adulthood: Belief in long lasting love and secure, trusting relationships

Avoidant attachments

• Childhood: Most likely to be victims of bullying, less likely to have a special friend

• Adulthood: Lack of belief in long lasting love, finds it hard to get emotionally close to a partner, uninvolved

Resistant attachments

• Childhood: Most likely to be bullies, finds it hard to maintain friendships

• Adulthood: Tends to be paranoid their partner will leave them, controlling and argumentative

Hazan and Shaver (1987)

• Analysis of 620 replies to a ‘love quiz’ published in a local newspaper

• They assessed current relationships, past relationships and attachment types

• 56% secure/25% avoidant/19% resistant

• Secure: Believed love is enduring, had mutual trust and were less likely to get divorced

• Insecure: Felt love was rare, fell in and out of love easily, found relationships less easy, more likely to be divorced

Myron-Mason & Smith (1998)

• 196 chn aged between 7-11 in London

• Found insecurely attached infants have later friendship difficulties, I-A chn more likely to be bullied and I-R chn more likely to be bullies