Lesson 4.1.3.5

4.1.3.5 Early attachment and childhood and adult relationships Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 1

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.1.3.5, Early attachment and childhood and adult relationships: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Psychology (7182), Unit 1: Introductory topics in Psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. In Hazan and Shaver's (1987) study of adult romantic relationships, what proportion of adults were classified as secure?

    • About 19 per cent
    • About 25 per cent
    • About 56 per cent
    • About 100 per cent

  2. Which other attachment types did Hazan and Shaver classify adults into, alongside secure?

    • Dependent and independent
    • Avoidant and anxious-ambivalent
    • Imprinted and monotropic
    • Disorganised and resistant

  3. What did Hazan and Shaver find about the relationships of secure adults compared with insecure adults?

    • Secure adults reported longer and happier relationships
    • Secure adults reported shorter and less happy relationships
    • Secure adults never had any romantic relationships
    • Secure adults reported no difference in relationship quality

  4. What is the continuity hypothesis in attachment research?

    • The idea that attachment is only formed during adolescence, when young people begin to form close romantic bonds
    • The idea that early attachment patterns can persist into later childhood and adult relationships
    • The idea that attachment styles change completely every few years, so early experience has no lasting influence on people
    • The idea that attachment is determined by the number of siblings a child has, with more siblings meaning more secure bonds

  5. How does the internal working model relate to adult relationships?

    • It is a fixed set of rules taught at school that determines adult behaviour, covering how people should treat each other
    • It provides expectations about others that influence how adults behave in romantic and other relationships
    • It is unrelated to relationships and only affects learning, since it helps people remember facts from their early years
    • It is a physical memory of the mother's face that persists into adulthood, and which triggers feelings of comfort later

  6. An adult who expects partners to be reliable and warm is most likely to have which kind of internal working model?

    • A model based on anxious-ambivalent early attachment
    • A model based on avoidant early attachment
    • A model based on secure early attachment
    • A model formed only in adulthood through conditioning

  7. Which evaluation point applies to research on adult attachment and romantic relationships?

    • Self-report measures may not accurately reflect how people actually behave in their relationships
    • Adult attachment studies show that infant attachment has no link with adult patterns
    • Self-report measures are always more accurate than observation
    • Adult relationships are unaffected by any measure of attachment

  8. Which evaluation point applies to the claim that early attachment predicts adult relationships?

    • The evidence shows that infant attachment has no effect on adults, since adult relationships are shaped only by later life
    • Evidence of links is correlational, so it cannot show that early attachment causes adult patterns
    • The evidence is based only on studies of animals, so it cannot be used to make any claim about human adults at all
    • The evidence shows that early attachment causes adult patterns in every case, so adult relationships can be predicted exactly

  9. Which feature of the internal working model makes it particularly relevant to explaining continuity?

    • It changes completely every time a new relationship begins, so each partner brings a fresh and unrelated set of expectations
    • It exists only in the memory of other people, such as parents or friends, and cannot be held by the individual themselves
    • It is a mental template that persists and shapes expectations across time
    • It is limited to the first year of life only, after which the model is replaced by peer-based expectations of others

  10. A researcher finds that adults with secure early attachments report better communication in their current relationships. Which conclusion is best supported?

    • Early attachment causes all adult communication problems, since insecure infants always grow into adults who struggle to talk
    • Early secure attachment is associated with better adult relationship quality
    • Communication is only affected by education level and income, so early relationships have no bearing on how people talk
    • Adult communication has no link with early experience, because communication skills are learned entirely in adulthood

  11. Which pattern would best support the continuity hypothesis?

    • Adults report the same relationship pattern regardless of their infancy, because every child grows into the same kind of adult
    • Infant attachment has no link with any later behaviour, so the classification made in infancy never predicts anything later
    • Infants classified as secure tend to report avoidant relationships in adulthood, because early security leads to distance later
    • Infants classified as secure in the Strange Situation tend to report secure adult relationships years later

  12. Which statement about the role of early attachment in adult relationships is most accurate?

    • Later experience can never change an adult's attachment pattern, once it has been formed in the first years of life
    • Early attachment completely determines all later relationships, so no experience after infancy can ever change how an adult relates
    • Early attachment has no influence on adult relationships, which are formed entirely through choice and personal circumstance
    • Early attachment is one influence among many, and later experiences can change how an adult relates to others

  13. An adult has an avoidant pattern in their relationships, finding closeness uncomfortable and often withdrawing from partners. Which early attachment is it most likely linked to in the adult classification?

    • No early attachment at all
    • Avoidant attachment in infancy
    • Secure attachment in infancy
    • Anxious-ambivalent attachment in infancy

  14. Why might a researcher use a longitudinal design to test the influence of early attachment on adult relationships?

    • Because it removes the need for measuring attachment at all, since adult patterns can be seen from the relationships alone
    • Because it can follow the same people over time and show whether early patterns predict later relationships
    • Because it only tests people who have no relationships, which makes the results easier to compare across all samples
    • Because it is cheaper and quicker than any other design, so the researcher can test many more people in a single week

  15. Which result would be least consistent with the idea that the internal working model guides adult relationships?

    • Adults with avoidant early attachment expect distance from partners
    • Adults' expectations of partners are unrelated to their earliest experiences of care
    • Adults with secure early attachment expect warm responses from partners
    • Adults' expectations of partners reflect their early experiences of care

  16. Which of these is a limitation of the Hazan and Shaver study as evidence for adult attachment?

    • It used a self-report love quiz, so responses depend on how people describe their own relationships
    • It measured infant behaviour in the Strange Situation, so the adult relationship types were never measured at all
    • It used a laboratory experiment with random allocation to conditions, so the attachment types were tested directly
    • It included only children under five years old, so the findings cannot be applied to adults in any setting at all

  17. A researcher argues that adult romantic attachment is a continuation of infant attachment. Which evidence would best support this?

    • Adults whose infant attachments were never measured, so no link between infancy and adulthood could possibly be tested
    • Adults who have never been in a relationship, so their attachment styles cannot be linked to any relationship experience
    • Adults' romantic styles that are unrelated to any infant classification, since adult relationships are shaped by later life only
    • Adults' romantic styles that match their earlier infant classifications in longitudinal data

  18. Which combination correctly links an adult attachment pattern with a likely expectation of others?

    • Secure: others will be rejecting; avoidant: others will always be responsive
    • Secure: others are unpredictable; anxious-ambivalent: others are always distant
    • Secure: others will be responsive; avoidant: others will be distant or unavailable
    • Anxious-ambivalent: others are always responsive; secure: others are unpredictable

  19. A study finds that adults who report anxious-ambivalent attachment also report more worry about being abandoned by partners. What does this suggest?

    • Worry about abandonment is unrelated to attachment patterns, since it reflects only the current mood of the individual
    • Anxious-ambivalent adults are never worried about partners, and tend to feel completely secure in every relationship they form
    • Worry about abandonment causes infant attachment patterns, because worried parents always produce anxious babies in the first year
    • An anxious-ambivalent pattern is linked to expectations of abandonment in relationships

  20. Hazan and Shaver asked adults to describe their romantic relationships. Which type of data collection did this involve?

    • Structured observation in a laboratory
    • Analysis of infant behaviour in a playroom
    • A self-report questionnaire
    • Physiological measurement of heart rate

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