Although Simpson’s research suggests that childhood experiences will have a fixed effect on all future relationships, implying that if a child is insecurely attached in infancy, this will be the result in all relationships to be. This is quite clearly not the case, and this is proven by a wealth of research which found that insecurely attached babies can successful have adult relationships that are secure and are genuinely happy. However, Simpson et al did conclude that the study does not suggest that, ‘an individual’s past unalterably determines the future course of his/her relationships’ as this would be extremely deterministic and will completely dismiss things such as free will which enable us to have independence and allow us to create our own futures.
Further supporting evidence comes from Fraley (1998) who conducted a meta-analysis of studies and found correlations from 0.10 to 0.50 between early attachment type and later relationships. This shows a lin between childhood and adult relationships as there is a small but significant correlation between the type of relationship the child has with their primary caregiver and the type of adult relationships they experience when they grow older. However the ‘temperament hypothesis’ offers an alternative explanation. This hypothesis suggests that certain individuals are born with a more likeable and easy going temperament, which results in a positive relationship with their primary caregiver.
Qualter and Munn (2005) have shown that children also learn from their experiences with other children. To explicate, certain experiences a child has, affect how a child thinks about himself and others, which then becomes internalised. Nangle et al (2003) supports this claim and argues that children’s friendships are like training grounds for important adult relationships in later life. The experience of having a friend to confide in promotes feelings of trust, acceptance and a sense of being understood, these are ironically characteristics that are important in later romantic relationships.
Nevertheless, there are still certain factors such as gender differences in childhood relationships that have been found in a number of studies. Supporting evidence for this comes from Richard and Schneider (2005) who found that girls have more intimate friendships than boys. They also found that girls are more likely to report care and security in their relationships with other girls. Further supporting evidence for gender differences come from Erwin (1993) who found that boys relationships tend to be more competitive, This is clearly shown in the choice of playground activity because it is observed that girls are more likely to engage in cooperative and sharing activities. This highlights significant gender differences in childhood relationships and by looking at the different activities it can be suggested that this will affect adult relationships, for example women act more affectionate and so will want more affection in relationships. However, challenging evidence for these gender differences comes from Erwin who states that gender differences are over emphasised in terms of childhood relationships and that the many similarities that both sexes do have tend to be overlooked.
Adolescence is a critical period in childhood development, is consists of increased importance of close friendships, of whom surpass parents as the primary source of social support. Carver et al (2003) claimed that by age 16, most adolescents have experienced a romantic relationship and although Bowlby’s theory of attachment has mostly focused on the parent-infant attachment bond, there is evidence that this attachment process also shapes adolescent relationships. Allen and Land (1999) suggest that adolescent relationships are based on their internal model of relationships formed from infancy, early childhood and their experiences in current relationships. Adolescents need to have relationship experience, so that the adult relationships are able to last through trial and error as each relationship affects the next or current relationship. The development of formal operational thinking allows adolescents to view their attachment relationships more objectively, in other words comparing relationships with parents to hypothetical ideals results in the conclusion that one or even both parents are not able to meet the adolescent’s current attachment needs, and so another relationship might meet attachment needs better than the current one with parents.
However the claim that adolescents need to detach from parents for the importance of development into a young adult has been challenged by Larson et al (1996) who used pagers to find out what 10-18 year olds were doing at random times during the day. They found that although the amount of time spent with family decreased slightly in early adolescence, the time spent with each parent individually was quite consistent throughout the years. This suggests that parent-child relationships are not replaced by adolescent relationships but instead enhance and grow with the adolescent. Also independence is most healthy when accompanied by continuing a close relationship with parents. This has been called ‘connectedness’ by Coleman and Hendry (1999).
In adolescence, the adolescents detach from their parents and instead attach more to their peers and current partner. A romantic relationship within adolescence helps to achieve the goal of separation from parents as they redirect their attachment on to their romantic partner. Also romantic relationships allow the adolescent to gain a type of emotional and physical intimacy that is quite different from that experienced with parents. As it is well known that the love for a partner is completely different then the love for a parent.
This has been supported by Madsen (2001) who tested the effects of dating behaviour in adolescence (ages 15–17½) on the quality of young adult romantic relationships (ages 20–21). She found that when individuals did not date a lot in adolescence it resulted in a higher-quality young adult relationship, whereas when an adolescent dated a lot, it resulted in poorer quality young adult relationships. This suggests that the amount you date during adolescence can have advantages and disadvantages for adult relationship quality. This contradicts the claim that experiences in previous relationships; help strengthen future relationships due to learning from mistakes etc. Also Madsen’s finding have been challenged by Roisman et al (2004) who found no effect of romantic experiences at age 20 on romantic relationships at age 30. This suggests that adolescent romantic relationships may not affect adult relationships and so more research is needed for valid findings and conclusions to be made.
However, the studies carried out are ethnocentric as many of the adolescent romantic relationship studies have used samples taken from one school or one city, usually in the US. This means that the findings do not represent the entire word and a more random and larger sample will need to be taken in future studies to avoid culture biased findings. If social factors determine adolescent experiences, then it is difficult to generalise findings from one highly specific culture to all cultures.
by
rednose93 (student)
