To What Extent Do Individual Differences In Attachments Effect Later Development?

Lucinda Watkins 12.6

To What Extent Do Individual Differences In Attachments

Effect Later Development?

An attachment is a type of bond where there is a want to be close to the object or person involved in the attachment. Of course, not every attachment is the same; this is expressed through the words ‘individual difference’. Mary Ainsworth concluded from The Strange Situation that there are three different types of attachments; Secure Attachment, this is thought to be the ‘normal’ type of bond between a child and its caregiver, the baby showed stranger anxiety and separation anxiety, it also greeted the caregiver with enthusiasm and used them as a secure base for exploration. The second type is Avoidant Attachment, in this case the child is unresponsive to the attachment figure and to the stranger, and shows no signs of distress when the caregiver leaves. The last type is Anxious Attachment as shown in the name, a child with the attachment is uneasy, and so seeks closeness to the caregiver prior to separation failing to explore its surroundings. However on the caregiver’s return, the infant is angry and not easily soothed. Another type of attachment was discovered by Main and Solomon, this is the most unusual type of bond, called Disorientated Attachment; the child displays a dazed look and acts confused, displaying contradictory behaviour.

Ainsworth’s three types of attachment were used in a study carried out by Hazan and Shaver where participants completed a quiz or ‘love quiz’ consisting of a checklist of adjectives to be filled in about childhood relationships with parents, and parent’s relationship with each other to measure their types of attachments, and lastly a questionnaire had to be filled in concerning the individual’s beliefs about romantic love. The quiz was placed in a newspaper and the 620 replies were analysed. Based on their childhood attachments, and adult style of love, Hazan and Shaver put the participants into one of the three groups discovered by Ainsworth; secure, avoidant and ambivalent. It was found that there was a ‘consistent relationship’ between the type of attachment and romantic style of love. Secure types talked about their love experiences as being happy and trusting ones, and were able to accept their partners for who they were. Avoidant lovers normally feared intimacy and were emotionally unstable, and lastly ambivalent types were obsessive and yearned intimacy, worrying that their partners would leave them. These findings suggest that there is a strong link between individual differences in attachment and attitudes/behaviour in later life. It can be seen that all the people who had the same type of attachment in childhood end up with the same type of love style, displaying that it is their childhood attachments that shape their later love life and not nature. It is suggested that a child is not programmed to form a secure or insecure attachment particularly, but only to form any attachment. However, the study concentrates solely on the participant’s views on love, and does not explore any other side to their later development. The findings are in some way unreliable as the data was collected through the participants sending the results of the quiz back, only certain types of people may fill in and return the questionnaire and only certain types of people may read the paper that the quiz was printed in. The results would also be affected by external factors, for example the individual’s mood or interaction with their parents recently; if they had just had an argument with their parents, their attitudes towards them would be different to normal. The participants could give biased answers to the questions, in order to make themselves feel better about their relationships for example. As adults were asked, they had to fill in the quiz about their childhood attachments through memories, which could be distorted or altered.

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Generational transmission suggests that an individual’s early attachments affects how they interact with their child as an adult, and in doing so their children’s attachments. Main and Hesse recognised this relationship between attachments and later development when they carried out a study in 1990. It comprised of an interview that classified adult’s attachments to parents through asking them questions about; their childhood experiences, their current relationship with their parents, if they were ever rejected and lastly, they were asked to chose five adjectives to describe each parent and to give reasons for their choices. From this information, the participants’ internal model of attachment was put into three groups; Secure; these individuals were well balanced and could accept both good and bad sides to their childhood. Detached; these people denied the importance of early family life, and highlighted their personal strengths, whilst idealizing their parents. Lastly, Preoccupied; these adults described role reversing or conflicting parenting. They seem confused by, but still very engrossed in the relationship. It was then discovered that the children of the secure adults had secure attachments, detached parents had children with avoidant attachments, and preoccupied individuals had children with ambivalent attachments. This shows that a person’s early development does affect them later on in life through which internal modal attachment group they will fall into, and it with it how they interact with people in later development. This study was not entirely accurate as the participants’ mood or recent interaction with their parents could affect the results, as was true for the love quiz. Again, the adults are looking back, and so their memories may not be accurate. Also, the individuals are giving their opinions about their childhood, if they have been brought up in a certain way they would presume that it is normal and not deprived and they have not been rejected, each person would have a different view on what is a ‘happy childhood’.

In contrast to the evidence mentioned so far is the ‘temperament hypothesis’. It aims to explain the link between early attachment and later development, disregarding the idea that attachments affect the later development, but instead suggesting that the two rely on the same thing and that is why the results are similar. Kagan argued that an individual’s attachment and development depend on the innate temperament of the person, and that some people are naturally good at forming relationships, and that others do not have this skill. Chess and Thomas defined three different temperamental types; the ‘easy child’ who is generally positive and adaptable, ‘the difficult child’ who is just the opposite and the ‘slow-to-warm-up’ child who is shy and not adaptable but is not difficult. These temperaments could be used to explain why a child develops a good or bad relationship with its caregiver, and also why in later development similar relationships evolve. However, Kagan did not have much evidence to support his theory, in fact most evidence goes against his hypothesis e.g. The Strange Situation (Ainsworth).

From the evidence I have discovered, it seems to me that later development is a mix of temperament and early attachments. If a child’s temperamental state is not properly understood and accepted by the parent the attachment could be insecure and later development negatively affected. I think that it is a mix of the child’s and parent’s temperaments that mould how they interact, and therefore the attachment that they form, and so this attachment, along with the temperament of the child contribute to their development, along with other external factors such as an event in the child’s life.

To What Extent Do Individual Differences In Attachments Effect Later Development?

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