Discuss the influence of childhood and adolescent experiences on adult relationships.

24 marks Bowlby developed the continuity hypothesis which outlined that young children have a biological need for a strong and positive attachment with their primary caregiver (usually the mother) in order to enhance survival. He believed that the young child will develop an internal working model (IWM) from their first relationship with their primary caregiver, as the IWM provides the child with a template for future relationships. This is known as the continuity hypothesis which essentially suggests that the attachment formed as a child affects later relationships in adulthood. Ainsworths Strange Situation study supports Bowlbys continuity hypothesis. Through her study she concluded that there are three main attachment types (secure, insecure ambivalent and insecure avoidant) which are formed in childhood and which would affect relationship types in later adulthood. Securely attached children are likely to develop into freely trusting individuals who believe in true love and have happy, healthy relationships. Whereas, insecurely attached types would find it difficult to form relationships and have issues in trusting people. Also, our experiences during adolescence can influence our adult relationships. This is usually the period in time where we begin to spend more time with our peers and less time with family; this allows friendships to become more intimate, allowing us to feel comfortable in self-disclosing our inner feelings. These peer-to-peer relationships also allow us to practise social skills and abilities. Willie and Jacobson found that securely attached children tend to be more socially skilled and popular in their friendships than insecurely attached types, which is later reflected in their ability to form romantic relationships in adulthood. Also, Moore looked at sexual activity amongst teenagers and found that securely attached types were less likely to have unsafe sex but were more likely to have had sex. She concluded that secure attachments can help teenagers through the transition into adult sexual relationships. However, this is quite deterministic as it says that it is only our attachment type as a child which determines both our adolescent and adulthood relationship types. Important factors such as the role of the media and peer pressure, which have a large influence on our behaviour and expectations of relationships, are largely ignored. The continuity hypothesis and results from studies which support are also very reductionist, as they ignore behavioural explanations which say that our adult relationships are influenced by our observation of relationships in our environment as children, Conversely, these findings in support of the continuity hypothesis have had a positive impact on society. For instance, parents now know that they need to put more time and effort into spending time with their children to ensure a secure attachment, which will be beneficial to the childs future relationships. Also, nurseries and schools can identify these groups of children who are at risk of insecure attachments, and support them so that in theory divorce rates and unhappy relationships will decrease in the future. Furthermore, Hazan and Shavers Love Quiz supports the link between attachment types and adult romantic relationships. They went about doing this by publishing a love quiz in an American newspaper; the quiz included a range of questions that aimed to establish their feelings towards romantic relationships and what their relationships were like with their parents when they were children. However, there are issues with this research as the use of a questionnaire raised the problem of social desirability, so the results may not be a true reflection of their attachment types.

Also, this quiz relied heavily on the participants ability to memorise their childhood experience, so they may have had distorted views about what happened, this will thus influence the results. Evidence which conflicts with that from Ainsworths Strange Situation and Hazan and Shavers Love Quiz, include Zimmermans, who studied a group of German children and found that childhood attachment type did not predict adult attachment type, and that Life Events (i.e. divorce or death) had a much greater influence on later security.