Outline Influence of Childhood Experiences on Adult Relationships Essay

Individuals disagree in their relationships psychologists have researched whether pornographic relationships atomic number 18 related to early experiences in life. Bowlby believes that the type of relationship the individual has with their primary c argiver gives a origination of a future relationship. This is called the internal working model. The fear of strangers represents an important endurance mechanism, which is by genius, babies display social releasers which helps them ensure contact or law of proximity with the primary c atomic number 18giver, as they similarly will with their partner in their adult relationship.Another exemplar of the internal working model is the continuity hypothesis, which is a key possible action to explaining childhood or adolescent experiences on subsequently adult relationships, where it states that childhood relationships will affect your future relationships, Mary Ainsworth explores this by looking at our relationships as infants as conc luded three types sound, equivocal-avoidant, insecure-resistant.Secure is where the infant is in a calm state even without the front line of the primary caregiver, secure avoidant is where shows little distress, avoids contact with caregiver when returns, and insecure-resistant is when child shows a lot of distress, anxious and nervous. This demonstrates the relationship that the child has with the primary caregiver when they are present and not present.This gives the child a set of beliefs about themselves and the nature of the relationship with others, the continuity thesis sees this as a predictive behaviour of future relationships. Hazen and churl besides devised a theory that supports the continuity thesis, they say that when a child perceives a threat to a relationship or themselves, they will feel frightened or worried, thusly they seek the primary caregivers attention. Depending on the situation the appendix behaviour varies depending on the need of the child.They ove rly observed adult relationships, where adults standardly feel safer and more secure when their partner is nearby and responsive, the partner may be apply as a secure base, when they may feel sick or threatened they will seek attention of partner which mimics their infant-mother relationship. Another psychologist Freud, also looks into unresolved conflicts as a child, he links this into adult relationships, where he concluded that this could cause difficulty forming. He explains this using our defence mechanisms.Again, Hazer and Shaver supports the thesis as they published the love quiz in an American Newspaper, and assemble that the majority of responses were secure attachment which gave them long lasting halcyon and fixed relationships, however this could be due to a social desirability, as only certain category of people would reply to the newspaper advertisement, for face middle class, or those that are happy in their relationship are more promising to respond to the ad rather than those in an miserable unfulfilling relationship.The participants were given 3 statements which each reflected the type of attachments that Mary Ainsworth found, he found those who were securely attached trusted each other and was in a happy stable relationship, those who were insecure avoidant were uncomfortable being close to others and insecure resistant were likely to be possessive and preoccupied about their relationships. thus far this study has been criticised for social desirability as participants may respond various knowingly that their information would be shared, and also for being retrospective as they are doing this from memory However there has been other explanations that suggests otherwise, for example Kagan presents the inclination hypothesis where polar infants simply may just have different personalities, for Kagan the strange situation measures the temperament rather than attachment and the attachment behaviours displayed are a reflection of this infants temperament.However the bizarre case study of the Czech twins would go against the continuity theory as to where their childhood attachment were abusive, unsatisfied and had no social or emotional bonds went to the opposite subsequently they were adopted by two loving sisters who they formed a normal loving bond and both went onto have long lasting stable relationships, this doesnt show that adult relationships replicating childhood attachments as they are facilitate able to have normal relationships without experiencing it at childhood.The continuity thesis is also very reductionist as they dont take in any other consideration or factors that can affect their relationships, for example peer influence, cultural differences for example, a collectivist culture is more likely to spend most their time mothering the child, so they are more likely to form an insecure attachment, but can still go on to developing normal relationships.