Kerns (1994)
- Securely attached infants form the best quality childhood friendships.
- Insecurely attached infants have friendship difficulties.
The influence of early attachment on childhood relationships
Bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment.
- Myron-Wilson and Smith (1998) assessed attachment type and bullying using
questionnaires in 196 children 7-11 from London.
- Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying
- Insecure avoidant children were the most likely to be victims
- Insecure resistant children were more likely to be bullies.
Relationships in Adulthood
McCarthy et al. (1999)
- 40 adult women whose attachment had been assessed via strange situation as
infants
- Secure: most established relationships
- Insecure resistant: problems with maintaining friendships
- Insecure avoidant: struggled with intimate relationships
AO3 limitation: Reductionism in the IWM researchers need to take this into consideration
when looking at later relationships because of external factors.
AO3 strength: supports the idea that its a good predictor of IWM (research support)
Issue and debate: it should have an interactionist approach, and cultural relativism.
Predicting relationships
- Associations between early and later life attachments do not always mean casualty.
- Due to independent variables such as the personality and external factors of a
partner, we cannot determine how relationships will be based on attachment types.
- An insecure individual may feel secure in a relationship based on their partner.
The influence of early attachment is probabilistic (social sensitivity in early
attachment)
Clarke and Clarke (1998) described the influence of infant attachments on later relationships
as problematic.
- Individuals are not “doomed” to always have bad relationships due to attachment
issues formulated in the first 2 years of life.
- Securely attached infants form the best quality childhood friendships.
- Insecurely attached infants have friendship difficulties.
The influence of early attachment on childhood relationships
Bullying behaviour can be predicted by attachment.
- Myron-Wilson and Smith (1998) assessed attachment type and bullying using
questionnaires in 196 children 7-11 from London.
- Secure children were very unlikely to be involved in bullying
- Insecure avoidant children were the most likely to be victims
- Insecure resistant children were more likely to be bullies.
Relationships in Adulthood
McCarthy et al. (1999)
- 40 adult women whose attachment had been assessed via strange situation as
infants
- Secure: most established relationships
- Insecure resistant: problems with maintaining friendships
- Insecure avoidant: struggled with intimate relationships
AO3 limitation: Reductionism in the IWM researchers need to take this into consideration
when looking at later relationships because of external factors.
AO3 strength: supports the idea that its a good predictor of IWM (research support)
Issue and debate: it should have an interactionist approach, and cultural relativism.
Predicting relationships
- Associations between early and later life attachments do not always mean casualty.
- Due to independent variables such as the personality and external factors of a
partner, we cannot determine how relationships will be based on attachment types.
- An insecure individual may feel secure in a relationship based on their partner.
The influence of early attachment is probabilistic (social sensitivity in early
attachment)
Clarke and Clarke (1998) described the influence of infant attachments on later relationships
as problematic.
- Individuals are not “doomed” to always have bad relationships due to attachment
issues formulated in the first 2 years of life.
