Early Parent Child Attachment Theory Essay

Throughout the years, numerous researchers have completed work exploring attachment theory and the long-term effects that early parent-child attachments have on people’s lives and relationships. This research has found that early attachment patterns extend across the lifespan and affect a variety of different aspects in people’s lives. With this in mind, this paper sought to provide an overview of the research currently available regarding the effects of early parent-child attachments on the well-being, social adjustment, and friendships and/or peer relationships of young adults. According to the literature reviewed, early parent-child attachments have a strong effect on young adults’ well-being and social adjustment. Research shows that young …show more content…
Most of the research regarding the effects of early attachments on later relationships has been focused on romantic relationships. Researchers have only recently begun to look more closely at how young adults’ friendships are affected by early attachments as well. As this is a subject that has only recently begun being studied, more research is needed to provide us with a further understanding of this topic and to confirm the reliability of the conclusions drawn by the studies discussed in Chapter 4. In addition, research using young adults from diverse backgrounds (gender, race, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, nation of origin, etc) is also needed, as these aspects may influence how parent-child attachments affect later friendships and/or how friendships are experienced in young adulthood. The issue of how early attachment patterns affect well-being and social adjustment in young adulthood would also benefit from the completion of more research using subjects from diverse backgrounds, although as this subject is more widely studied than that of early attachments and later friendships, some studies have been completed