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Adult Attachment Theory

1388 Words6 Pages

TOPIC - DEVELOPMENT PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH QUESTION - To what extent do early attachments affect adult interpersonal relationships?

INTRODUCTION
Attachment can be referred to as a deep and enduring emotional bond connecting one individual to another across the barriers of time and space. It need not be a reciprocal relationship in nature. Renowned psychologist John Bowlby has defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness occurring between human beings’. One person may be attached to another individual without this relationship being mutual. From this term, stems the universal Attachment Theory.
In psychology, this theory originates with the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth which was conducted …show more content…

To see the impact and effect of the early attachments on future adult interpersonal relationships the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation was conducted. This study conducted has generated a few insights. They include that certain events exerts small but lasting effects on how others think, feel and behave in their adult interpersonal relationships years later and also that there are specific interpersonal pathways through which early-life experiences impact adult-relationship functioning.
The their research, they had tested how how specific early interpersonal relationship experiences were linked to adult romantic relationship functioning by following a longitudinal sample of participants from birth to adulthood. This comes from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA; Sroufe et.al. 2005) In 1976-1977, new mothers …show more content…

As its name says it is an insecure type of attachment. In this kind of early attachment the mother is regularly inconsistent in her responses to the babies’ needs. The parents either tend to over react to their infant or fail to help the infant from engaging socially. Appropriate research from Siegel has shown that mothers experiencing depression and other psychological disorders tend to vent it out on the child thus resulting in excess trauma and suffering for the child. Resultantly, these infants develop a confusing situation towards attachment in adulthood. They become more prone to being attached, becoming overly dependent on others. These adults attract emotional-unavailability towards them and focus essentially on internal distress. On the whole, they tend to experience unstable relationships in the future owing to their faulty perception and exposure as

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