Discuss the influence of childhood and / or adolescent experiences on adult relationships

Child hood and adolescent experiences shape our personality. Whether we are tended to adequately as a child, peer pressure and attachment all seem to play some role in shaping our personality which would have implications for future relationships. Childhood and adolescent experiences are said to have an influence on later relationships. Shaver suggests there are three things which influence our later relationships, care giving, attachment type and attitude towards sexual experiences. The idea that out attachment types influence out later relationship was put forward by Bowlby, who believes that those with more secure attachments would have better relationships in adult life. Reasonable AO1
Fraley et al found a line between attachment and relationships from between 0.10-0.50. This suggests that, although a weak link, our attachment types do have further implications on our relationships as an adult. For example, research suggests that people with an insecure attachment type may have a more casual attitude towards sex- wanted to have sexual relations for pleasure rather than out of love, which a more securely attached person may prefer, therefore there are further implications for this suggestion as it may explain why different people may act in different ways towards relationships. AO2 Reasonable analysis and elaboration.
Influence of childhood and adolescent experiences may be a determinist approach as it suggests that people who have insecure or poor attachment may have poor adult relationships, but this is not the case in all people. AO2 Reasonable IDA link There is research to highlight gender differences in childhood experiences, Erwin suggests that boys may be more competitive in their mature when playing- shown when they race against each other or play more aggressive games- whereas in youth, girls are more co-operative. This links to the sexual selection theory as competition would be adaptive as boys may be more competitive due to intra-sexual competition-trying to win a mate in adult relationships and intersexual competition where they are trying to be the best at what they do to attract a female. The fact that childhood experiences suggest that girls are more co-operative in their play also links with evolutionary ideas as in the EEA, it would have been more adaptive for girls to be co-operative as this would ensure greater chance of survival and acceptance into their group AO1 Attempted link to relationships but not linked clearly to adult relationships
However, Erwin does say that similarities may be overlooked between genders and behaviours may be more similar than first perceived. Brief AO2 Other research suggests that levels of dating in teenage years may have an influence on later relationships. For example; research into levels of dating at 15-17 ½ and implications of their affects at 20-21 suggest that those with low to moderate levels of dating aged 15-17 ½ tend to have higher quality relationships at age 20-21 then those with high levels of dating in adolescence (as high dating links to more short term and lower quality relationships aged 20-21). This suggests that those who have low to moderate dating in adolescence may value their relationships more and this may be the reason behind better quality relationships in early adulthood, however, contrasting research suggests this to be an inadequate explanation of how our adolescent experiences influence our adult relationships as dating levels and quality of relationships at age 20 were found to have no impact on dating levels and quality of relationships at age 30. AO1 Coherent, generally accurate, explicit link to adult relationships
This suggests there may be issues with validity of research into the influences of childhood and adolescent relationships on adult relationships or reliability as they may only be applicable to young adulthood when we still have little overall experience in romantic relationships. Basic IDA, validity. There may also be other factors involved to change our view on relationships i.e. a really bad experience of a relationship in adulthood which may mean that we act differently towards future relationships.