Internal Working Models (IWMs) 1 A definition

Bowlby’s notion o f an internal working model (1969/1982) refers to “the mental representation o f past events and interpersonal interactions, the confirmation and/or revision

^This phase o f the attachment relationship will be considered in much greater detail in Chapter Five.

o f these mental representations in light o f current interpersonal experiences, in the service o f preparedness for fixture diverse interpersonal experiences” (Steele & Steele, 1994, p.95). As a conceptual metaphor, the term internal working model has several advantages. The adjective ‘\vorkmg” draws attention to the dynamic aspects o f representation. By operating on mental models, an individual can generate interpretations o f the present and evaluate alternative courses o f future action. The word “model” imphes construction, and hence development with later, more complex working models, leaving them open to modification over the course o f development.

Both cognitive and affective processes are seen to influence the way that events and interactions are actively represented and appraised, consciously and unconsciously. These mental representations are seen as organized stmctures and, Wfile resistant to change, are also open to modification over the course o f development. The optimal function o f these representations is to encode interactions in such a way that will facihtate an abihty to predict how inq)ortant others will behave and how the self might feel, think and behave in response. This view assumes an ongoing, interplay among cognition, emotion and behaviour in development. For exartqxle, as the child’s affective-cognitive understanding develops, IWMs o f self and others, and o f the physical world increase in sophistication. Hence, behaviours regulated by the attachment system may change substantially with age, even though the basic interrelationships among the component subsystems remain unaltered. As children become better able to assess the intentions and motives o f attachment figures, as they acquire coping skills and learn to make better appraisals o f vsfiat is dangerous, attachment behaviour becomes more subtle.

These characteristics o f the child’s developing IWMs are importantly related to the child’s theory o f mind, since the psychological processes that enable a child to create IWMs

may benefit from a theory o f mind. This is an important point and is returned to in greater detail in the third part o f this chapter.

1.10.2. The developmental origins o f IWMs

It is the early affectively-laden interactions with caregivers which provide the basis for the development o f IWMs. The work o f the psychoanalyst and infancy researcher Daniel Stem is useful in describing the elements wbich may be seen to be the building blocks o f these IWMs. Stem (1985) formulated the notion o f ‘‘Representations o f Interactions which become Generalized” (RIGs) to describe infant’s mental experiences o f their evolving relationships with caregivers. RIGs would seem to occupy an intermediate position between actual events or interactions and IWMs. RIGs refer to the mental processes which abstract from diverse experiences common elements and which allow the individual to represent past interactions in such a way that facihtates predictions concenung future interactions. In Stem’s account, Wiich is highty consistent with Bowlby’s view o f IWMs, the origins o f RIGs he in the quahty o f caregivers’ emotional attunement to their infants. Similarly, the quahties o f the child’s IWM will depend on how the attachment needs o f the infant are met by the parent.

1.10.3. Model o f the relationship or model o f the self and other

By one year o f age, in more-or-less normal circumstances, something like an organized and fimctional IWM has developed on the basis o f the child’s experience o f infant-caregiver interactions. Since IWMs o f self and attachment figures are constructed out o f these dyadic experiences, it may be preferable to speak, in early development, o f an IWM o f the relationship (Main, Kaplan & Cassidy, 1985). Nevertheless, even when the models o f self and other have become distinct, they represent obverse aspects o f the same relationship and cannot

be understood without reference to each other. For example, if an attachment figure frequently gives help and comfort vsfren needed, the child will develop a working model o f the parent as loving and o f the self as worthy o f the help and support received (Bowlby, 1973). Conversely, if an attachment figure frequently rejects or misinterprets the child’s bids for comfort in stressfid situations, the child may come to develop not only an IWM o f the parent as rejecting but also one o f himself as not worthy o f help and comfort.

1.10.4. Multiple models

Bowlby (1973) points out that there may also be occasions when multiple models o f a single attachment figure or o f the self are operative: ‘‘When multiple models o f a single figure are operative they are likely to differ in regard to their origin, dominance and the extent to which the subject is aware o f them. In a person suffering from emotional disturbance it is common to fin d that the model that has greatest influence on his perceptions and forecasts, and therefore on his feelings and behaviour, is one that developed during his early yea rs and is constructed along fairly primitive lines, but that the person may be relatively unaware of; while simultaneously there is operating within him a second, and perhaps radically incompatible, model, that developed later, that is much more sophisticated, and that the person is more clearly aware o f and that he may mistakenly assume to be dominant” (p.205).

This notion is related to a theory o f defensive processes and involves the traditional psychoanalytic distinction between conscious and unconscious processes. Here, inconq)atible models o f attachment figures are understood as the product o f incompatible interpretations o f experience that may become defensively dissociated. Such dissociations are especially likely when the child cannot cope with viewing rejecting parents in an unfavourable hght or

when parents attempt to persuade the child to interpret their rejecting behaviour as loving. Relying on multiple models to defend against possibly unbearable painful feelings may provide emotional relief but is also likely to lead to subsequent difficulties with openly experiencing and accurately modelling interpersonal relationships, since the model cannot be restructured or updated as a serviceable model should be (Bowlby, 1973, 1980). In this way, the representations o f past painful experiences may significantly constrain the individual’s potential for feeling and thinking in new relationship contexts.

1.10.5. The role o f IWMs in the intergenerational transmission o f attachment

Bowlby (1973) suggested that IWMs o f the self and others, mitially developed in childhood, play a major part in the intergenerational transmission o f attachment patterns. Parent’s IWMs are thought to guide their expectations and behaviour in attachment-relevant contexts, especially that o f the parent-child relationship. Moreover, these expectations and behaviours will thus influence children’s developing assumptions about the loveabihty o f themselves and the availabihty o f caregivers encoded in their IWMs.

B: METHODS OF ASSESSING INDIVTDTJAL DIFFERENCES IN ATTACHMENT