Childhood experiences Essay

The quality and character reference of kindreds differ between individuals just about argon happy with long term-relationships, others prefer to a greater limit than temporary, less emotional relationships. Some individuals reckon lucky in love, while others seem to struggle to maintain a long term stalls relationship.Bowlby (1951) believed that the type of quality of relationship that individuals soak up with their primary c argivers provides the foundation for grownup relationships by abidanceing an internal working model hat acts as a usher for all future relationships. This is the Continuity Hypothesis, the belief that corresponding relationships will hail as an cock-a-hoop.One theory that is thought to affect aboutbodys future relationships is the supplement styles a child can explain. These Attachment styles are determined by Mary Ainsworths strange situation experiment, where a child is all Secure chemical bond, Insecure-resistant attachment or Insecure-avoid ant attachment type. It is believed attachment style provides children with a set of beliefs about themselves and others and the nature of relationships. The Continuity Hypothesis sees attachment as a main factor as predicting the nature of heavy(p) relationships. Therefore, someone who is securely given over as an infant will shake similar relationships throughout life.This is Theory is supported by the deal of HAZAN & shaver (1987). The experiment consisted of a love quiz questionnaire that was published in a newspaper. The questions were designed to classify and individual as one of Ainsworths attachment type. The questionnaire as well included qs which aimed to assess the pps puerility relationships with their caregivers, and their romantic experiences in their life. Results showed that attachment type that individual had shown as a child was related to how they felt about openhanded relationships. Showed secure attachment types in childhood were more believably to enjo y secure relationships as an vainglorious. Those with insecure-avoidant found it more hard to trust deal in an adult relationship.Those withinsecure-resistant were more likely to feel anxious in adult relationships and find it hard to realise as close to them as they wanted. As a result they conclude that relationships formed with parents during childhood affect relationships in adulthood. just this study does have issues with reliability as it is based on self-report data which is subjective. Furthermore the data is in any case retrospective further reducing reliability of the study. Also because the study relied on volunteer sampling, so the sample they have may non be truly representative of the commonwealth.However there are contradicting results in experiments done on the effect of attachment type on adult relationships as STEELE et al. (1998) found a small correlation of 0.17 between having a secure attachment type in childhood and primaeval adulthood. This is also t rue for the study of RUTTER et al. (1999) who reported that individuals without secure attachments to their parents went on to secure stable relationships contradicting the findings of HAZAN & SHAVER.It is also believed that interaction with peers during childhood also becharms later adult relationships. Peers become more influential as children progress into adulthood, playing a significant role in individuals becoming independent adults, helping develop social skills including those inevitable for adult relationships. GARNETT(2007) suggests that friendships during childhood give opportunities to develop skills needed to form victorious adult relationships including how to resolve conflict and how to take on different roles needed in relationships.COLLINS VAN DULMAN (2006) supports this theory and also suggests that relationships with peers give individuals the opportunity to learn behaviours and expectations involved in adult relationships. reenforcement the idea that experien ces during childhood and adolescence influence the quality of adult relationships.However some believed that it is difficult to measure the impact of a childs peer relationships on adult relationships, as there is a need to differentiate between having friends, who the friends are and the quality of each of the relationships, making it hard to identify the direct influence each of these factors has on quality of adult relationships.Furthermore it is thought that children who have witnessed unstable relationships between their parents and others around them will be influenced by this and therefrom influences their adult relationships. Studies have shown that people who experienced parental divorce during childhood have more forbid attitudes towards relationships than those who didnt experience parental divorce. These negative attitudes include being less optimistic about having a successful relationship, feeling less trustful of partners, having more favourable attitudes towards di vorce and more negative attitude towards marriage. SILVESTRI (1991) supports this notion as he found that having divorce parents significantly increased an individuals own chances of getting divorced. JOHNSTON and THOMAS provide an rendering for this suggesting that this could be because individuals model their behaviour on their parents behaviours.Linking back to bowlbys theory that children form an internal working model as to how relationships should be whilst not just being in a dysfunctional relationship themselves but notice these dysfunctional relationships too. However this theory cannot be generalised to the entire population as there are a large amount of people who experience divorce during childhood but still go on to have successful adult relationships. Thus proving that their must be galore(postnominal) other factors that can influence the long term do. Also look for into this area of how divorce effects a childs adult relationships can be used to minimise the e ffect of divorce on children.To conclude it seems that there is sufficient evidence to support bowlbys theory that early childhood experiences both being involved in relationships and observations of parents to does to some extent play a role in affecting their adult relationships. However due to the causal nature of much of the studies related to this area bureau that it can be difficult to establish what the true cause and effects are of early childhood experiences or whether it is other factors that are contribute to this, supported by the contradicting results of many studies in this area.Furthermore attachment theories are somewhat deterministic, perceiving childhood/peer attachments as causing later adult relationships. However it is likely that other factors are influential such as the different attachment types other peoplebring to the relationship. e.g if a insecurely attached person can have a secure relationship if they are in a relationship with a securely attached per son.