The ability to trust, love, and resolve conflict with loved ones starts in childhood — way earlier than you may think. Those are the findings in a new review of the literature in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.
“Your interpersonal experiences with your mother during the first 12 to 18 months of life predict your behavior in romantic relationships 20 years later,” say psychologists J. Simpson, W. Collins, and J. Salvatore. “Before you can remember, before you have language to describe it, and in ways you aren’t aware of, implicit attitudes get encoded into the mind,” about how you’ll be treated or how worthy you are of love and affection. While those attitudes can change with new relationships, introspection, and therapy, in times of stress old patterns often reassert themselves. The mistreated infant becomes the defensive arguer; the baby whose mom was attentive and supportive works through problems, secure in the goodwill of the other person.
Simpson, Collins, and Salvatore have been providing that evidence, investigating the links between mother-infant relationships and later love partnerships as part of the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. Their subjects are 75 children whom they’ve been assessing from birth into their early 30s, including their close friends and romantic partners. Borrowing from the classic studies on Attachment Theory, these studies divided the young children into securely and insecurely attached infants, and since then, these children, who are now adults, have returned regularly for assessments of their emotional and social development. The authors have looked at their skills and capacity for working through conflicts with peers, teenage best friends, and finally, love partners.
Through multiple analyses, the research has yielded evidence consistent with attachment theory, but some new findings are emerging. Historically many psychologists believed that a person’s traits and behavior were fairly stable through their life, but the authors state it was harder to “to find evidence for stable continuity than for change on many measures.” But the good news offered by the authors is that all of us are able to change. We can become more securely attached. If you can figure out what those old models are and verbalize them, and if you get involved with a committed, trustworthy partner or are in psychotherapy with a skilled therapist says Simpson and his co-authors, “you may be able to revise your models and calibrate your behavior differently.” Old patterns can be overcome. A betrayed baby can become loyal. A neglected infant can learn to be responsive and available rather than rejecting or reactive. An unloved child can learn to love.
