Internal Working Models Of Self Research Articles

Development and validation of a state adult attachment measure (SAAM)

For over two decades, individual differences in adult attachment style have been conceptualized and measured in terms of anxiety, avoidance, and security. During this time, the prevailing assumption has been that an adult’s attachment style is a relatively stable disposition, rooted in internal working models of self and relationship partners. These models are based on previous experiences in close relationships. Recent research, however, suggests that levels of attachment anxiety, avoidance, and security are also affected by situational factors. To capture temporary fluctuations in the sense of attachment security and insecurity we developed a state adult attachment measure (SAAM). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded three reliable subscales measuring state levels of attachment-related anxiety, avoidance, and security. Additional studies demonstrated both convergent and discriminant validity of the new measure, and its sensitivity to a variety of experimental manipulations. Our discussion focuses on potential uses for the SAAM for both researchers and clinicians.

Predictors of Well‐Being Among Nontraditional Female Students With Children

Many nontraditional female students experience psychological distress related to balancing family and academic roles, whereas others benefit from managing multiple roles. This study of 209 nontraditional female undergraduate students with children investigated factors that influence their psychological well‐being. Results indicated that secure attachment, parent and student self‐efficacy, and social support contributed to the prediction of psychological distress (38%), self‐esteem (54%), and life satisfaction (35%). Recommendations are made to enhance counseling services for nontraditional female students.

From adaptive emotion to dysfunction: an attachment perspective on social anxiety disorder.

In this article, existing theories of social anxiety are integrated within the framework of attachment theory, in particular, by means of the causal mechanism of internal working models of self and others. These models guide beliefs and expectations about social relationships and, thereby, contribute to social anxiety. They also contain procedural knowledge about the skills needed to initiate and maintain social relationships. A reconceptualization of social skill as the ability to regulate others' emotions and, thereby, their behavior is presented. It is suggested that deficits (real or imagined) in the ability to affect others' emotional states, and, thereby, achieve interpersonal goals, contribute to social anxiety. The integrated model is evaluated by a number of theory-goodness criteria, and directions for future research are discussed.

Transformational leadership and attachment

Attachment theory posits that the child's experiences with attachment figures (mostly parents) form the basis for an internal working model of self and others that can be either secure (others and self are perceived positively) or insecure (others or self are perceived negatively). In adulthood, these models are reflected in attachment styles which are manifested in various realms (e.g., romantic relationships). This article expands the conceptualization derived from attachment theory to the area of leadership. The arguments presented are anchored in the similarity found in the literature between characteristics of the secure attachment style and those of transformational leaders. The central hypothesis is that the style of transformational leadership will correlate positively with the secure attachment style. This hypothesis was examined in three studies conducted in officers' courses, using different sources of report in each study. In all three studies, significant correlations were found between secure attachment and transformational leadership. This new direction of research has important implications for the understanding of the personality and development processes of transformational leaders.

Attachment and expectations about future relationships: Moderation by accessibility

AbstractThis article examined the relationship between internal working models of self and other (Bowlby, 1969) and expectations for satisfaction in a future relationship, and how that relationship is moderated by the accessibility of one's internal models. Study one showed that the model of self was predictive of expected satisfaction, but the model of other was not. In study two, the results of study one were replicated. However, using a reaction time task to measure the chronic accessibility of internal models, it was shown that the relationship between model of self and expected satisfaction existed only for people with highly accessible internal models. The implications of these findings for a more cognitive view of attachment‐processes is discussed.

Why Don't People Change? A Psychoanalytic Perspective

From a psychoanalytic perspective, a central reason that people do not easily change is their fear of the dangers that they believe, at some level, change entails. These dangers include relinquishment of infantile wishes and fantasies, anxiety that would be experienced were defenses weakened, guilt, fantasies that change would harm a parental figure or threaten a vital relationship. Other factors that prevent change and maintain the sameness of behavior include defenses, unconscious pathogenic beliefs, devotion and loyalty to early figures, stable internal working models of self, other, and prototypic interactions, and emitting cues that elicit responses from others that confirm these working models. Finally, 1 discuss some selective psychoanalytic research on therapeutic change.

Closeness, support and reciprocity: a study of attachment styles in adolescence

In the context of boarding schools, the transactions between adolescents internal working models of self and others, their peers perceptions of them, as well as the reciprocity between perceptions of others and by others were explored. Findings supported the assumed effect of models of the other on a persons social environment, as well as the expected relations between the congruency of models of self and other and the actual reciprocity between perceptions of others and others perceptions of self. Patterns of reciprocity in interpersonal relationships were found to characterize secure (positive reciprocity) and fearful (negative reciprocity) attachment styles, while non-reciprocal relations appeared more frequently among preoccupied and dismissing persons. These findings suggest specific person-environment transactions that may be involved in securing the continuity of styles of relating.

Development and preliminary application of a new scale for assessing dysfunctional working models of self and others (DWM-S) in severely disturbed patients.

Although several suggestions have been made concerning the content and characteristics of cognitive/emotive schemata held by people with different disorders, there is still a scarcity of suitable instruments for verifying or measuring such constructs. This is particularly true of schemata postulated to be present in patients with personality disorders or a schizophrenic disorder. This article deals with the development of a new scale for assessing dysfunctional internal working models of self and others (DWM-S) in psychiatric patients. Preliminary results obtained in a sample of patients (n=110) and healthy subjects (n=40) suggest that the scale has a highly satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.97), and satisfactory test-retest reliability (rho coefficient=0.90 in healthy subjects and 0.86 in patients). Moreover, the DWM-S is able to discriminate between patients and healthy subjects and between patients suffering from various disorders. Further studies are in progress to assess the cross-national generalizability of the findings obtained so far.

Perceptions of Emotional Support from Mother and Friend in Middle Childhood: Links with Social‐Emotional Adaptation and Preschool Attachment Security

Children's (N = 58) perceptions of emotional support from mother and best friend were assessed at age 8. Perceptions of support from mother were predicted by attachment security at age 4, suggesting continuity in the children's internal working model of self in relation to mother. Preschool attachment security predicted age 8 perceptions of maternal support better than the mother's actual behavior at age 8. Identification of the best friend as a member of one's emotional support network was not related to security, but was positively related to social competence. However, among insecurely attached children, the greater the reliance on the best friend for emotional support, the greater the externalizing problems. Compensatory effects of best friend support on the social-emotional adaptation of insecurely attached children were not found.

A New Perspective on Youth Care Programs: Using Attachment Theory to Guide Interventions for Troubled Youth

ABSTRACT Traditional models of residential care for troubled youth are based on the assumption that their difficult and threatening behaviour needs to be contained and controlled. These models typically adhere to a behavioral or social learning perspective. Treatment is geared toward changing reinforcement schedules to reduce undesired behaviour as well as toward teaching social skills to increase the likelihood that youth will use socially appropriate strategies to have their needs met. In this paper we argue that, despite the usefulness of some traditional treatment strategies when employed within certain contexts, these interventions are often of limited value in working with youth who have developed internal working models of adults as rejecting, punitive and untrustworthy. The reliance of traditional treatment programs on behavioral strategies that emphasize control and containment of behaviour can, in effect, undermine already fragile attachments of troubled youth to adults and instigate power struggles that inevitably fail in helping youth to develop a sense of personal responsibility for and control of their actions. We propose that attachment theory offers a framework for a fundamentally different approach to working with troubled youth; an approach that begins with an appreciation of the youth's internal working models of self and other. This article reviews the process of transformation of a “traditional” control-focused program into a program that is guided by attachment theory.

The Internal Working Model of the Self, Attachment, and Competence in Five-Year-Olds

The present studies examine some of the correlates of the self in the lives of young children. In Study 1, the connection is tested between young children's internal working model of self and their competence, social acceptance, behavioral adjustment, and behavioral manifestations of self-esteem. Ninety-five kindergartners aged between 51 and 76 months (Mage = 5 years, 3 months) participated in the study. An adapted version of the Puppet Interview was used to assess the representation of self. Affective quality (positiveness) of self and openness to admit imperfections were rated independently. Results show significant and positive relations of the positiveness of self with competence and social acceptance, with behavioral adjustment to school, and with behavioral manifestations of self-esteem, all rated by the teacher. In Study 2, Bowlby's assumption was tested that the working model of self is closely intertwined with the working model of attachment to mother. Subjects were 50 children aged between 55 months and 75 months (Mage = 5 years, 5 months). The working model of child-mother attachment was assessed through an Attachment Story Completion Task. The working model of self was measured via the Puppet Interview. Results show a positive and strong connection between the security of the child-mother attachment representation and the positiveness of self. The results of the two studies contribute to the validation of the adapted Puppet Interview. The Puppet Interview seems to be a promising instrument for assessing the representation of self in young children.

The construction of the gendered self

Feminist contributions to systemic approaches to human behaviour have led to gender being defined in interactional terms. Gender is seen not as a fixed quality or trait but as one socially constructed between men and women. This idea is discussed in relation to the gender debate in family therapy, attachment theory and feminist contributions to psychoanalytic thinking. Gender relationships are created as part of a person's internal working models of self and other. The ways in which gender patterns are carried forward are examined, especially with respect to the contradictions between a person's gendered internal working models and their experience. These ideas are explored through case examples.

THE PROTOTYPE HYPOTHESIS AND THE ORIGINS OF ATTACHMENT WORKING MODELS: ADULT RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS AND ROMANTIC PARTNERS

Freud (1940) viewed the infant-mother relationship as a prototype that influenced the formation and course of later love relationships. Attachment theory shares with psychoanalytic theory the assumption that attachment experience in infancy is a major influence on later love relationships (Bowlby, 1973; Waters, Johnson, & Kondo-Ikemura, 1995). Bowlby (1973, 1980, 1988) preserved Freud's insight regarding the importance of early experiences and took some of the mystery out of the link between early experience and later affect, cognitions, and behavior by proposing that internal working models of self and other are constructed out of interactions with the primary attachment figure. He also described these representations as dynamic, in the sense that they are always under construction and can change, not only in the course of psychotherapy, but also in light of experiences within later attachment relationships. Across the life span, individuals may develop attachment-like relationships with several different partners, including mothers, fathers, siblings, and other relatives, nonfamilial caregivers, peers, and-during adolescence and adulthood-romantic partners and spouses. While these relationships differ in a variety of ways, any of them can serve as a context for important

Some effects of attachment disturbance on child behaviour

Internal working models of self and others and expectations of early relationships formed from early attachment experiences strongly influence the ways in which the child relates to others and the world. Infants whose early emotional needs have not been adequately met may come to view the world as comfortless and unpredictable and develop relationships that are marked by anxiety or detachment.This paper presents some of the foundations of attachment theory and case examples are used to illustrate the ways in which children develop anxious or detached patterns of attachment. Attachment difficulties, together with environmental influences, are thought to be a genesis of later behavioural problems such as poor impulse control, aggression, prolonged emotional dependency and extreme difficulty in relating to other children.

Attachment: The parental perspective

In the course of daily transactions, caregivers and children construct internal working models of self and other in the attachment relationship (Bowlby, 1969). The function of such working models is to guide an individual's own behavior toward the attachment partner and to interpret and forecast the partner's behavior. So far, however, research on internal working models has largely focused on attachment from the filial rather than the parental perspective even when adults were studied. To remedy this situation, 36 middle-class mothers were interviewed regarding their attachment relationship with their 25-month-old children. Attachment-relevant interview questions were open-ended, allowing the mothers to produce their own descriptive categories. The interview took about an hour. Two analyses were performed on the interview transcripts: a content analysis of specific attachment themes and a global evaluation of attachment quality as conveyed by the interview text as a whole. The content analysis provided interesting findings regarding mother-child affect communication, mother-child separation, and autonomy negotiations. For the global analysis a sensitivity/insight scale was applied to the interview text. This scale was significantly correlated with other attachment measures for the same children at 18 months (Strange Situation), 25 months (Waters &Deane Q-sort), and 37 months (Separation-Reunion Procedure, Attachment Story Completion Task). The sensitivity/insight scale was also significantly and meaningfully correlated with maternal and questionnaire data regarding infant temperament, maternal personality and family climate. In sum, the Parent Attachment Interview provides new insights into parental experiences of the attachment relationship and can also serve as an alternative or additional measure of attachment quality.

Subjectivity in parent-infant relationships: A discussion of internal working models

Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980) has proposed that internal working models of self and other are psychic structures that guide an individual's subjective experience of and responses to others in important relationships. They are termed “working” models because they are believed to be dynamic mental representations that are modifiable, although they are presumed to become more resistant to change after the early years. This paper reviews Bowlby's construct of internal working models, including some recent empirical evidence usefully explained by the construct. The authors apply the construct of working models to parents' subjective experiences of their infants and review some preliminary evidence that suggests that parental working models of their infants are present even prior to the infants' birth and influence the parents' perception and interpretation of the infants' characteristics and behaviors. The authors then consider the development of infants' working models of self and other in the context of parental attributions. They conclude that subjectivity in parent-infant relationships is an exciting and promising area for investigation, although, at present, future progress is limited by problems of measurement. A brief discussion of directions for future research is included.

Dilemmas of Love and Discipline in Therapy with Couples and Parents

Feminist contributions to systemic approaches to human behaviour have led to gender being defined in interactional terms. Gender is seen not as a fixed quality or trait but as one socially constructed between men and woman. This idea is discussed in relation to the gender debate in family therapy, attachment theory and feminist contributions to psychoanalytic thinking. Gender relationships are created as part of a person's internal working models of self and other. The ways that gender patterns are carried forward are examined, especially with respect to the contradictions between a person's gendered internal working models and their experience. These ideas will be examined through case examples.