Internal working model
The largely unconscious template of how close relationships work: whether others respond, and whether oneself deserves response. It shapes what a person expects, notices and remembers.
What drives it
Lets a person predict others quickly without starting from scratch. The cost is that perception tilts towards confirmation, so people recreate familiar dynamics.
How it shows
Work
A new hire who expects the boss to be critical hears neutral comments as criticism, gets defensive, and so attracts criticism. A leader's model shows in how they treat dependence: as trust, as a burden, or as a threat.
Relationships
Picks partners who fit the template, provokes the expected response, and discounts evidence against it ("She's only being nice because she wants something").
Self
Notice the gap between what someone said and what you heard; the consistent direction of that gap is your model.
What tells it apart
Early maladaptive schemas and coping styles (Young): Schemas are broader (failure, entitlement, standards) and are worked on explicitly in therapy; the working model concerns expectations of care and shows in what a person does under stress with someone close.
Transference: Transference is the working model enacted in one live relationship, often with an authority; the model is the template behind it.
Self-verification: Self-verification is the pull to confirm any self-view in any setting; the working model concerns whether care will come.
A test
Compare what the person predicted others would do with what they actually did, across several relationships; a consistent tilt one way reveals the model.
Questions to carry
- Across a few relationships, how did what they predicted others would do compare with what those people did?
- Where have I expected to be let down, and then missed the moment someone showed up?
How strong the research is
moderate. A central explanatory concept with good indirect support from expectation, memory and priming studies; it is hard to measure directly.
Where it comes from
John Bowlby, 1969 and 1973, adapting Kenneth Craik, 1943
On the family tree: John Bowlby
Sources
- John Bowlby, Attachment (Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1) (1969)
- Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver, Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change (2nd edition) (2016)