Cultural variations of attachment

Question 1

What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonsberg say about cultural variations of attachment ?

Answer 1

Conducted a meta-analysis:
- 32 studies on the strange situation
- 8 countries
- 1990 children
- each study was weighted for sample size

Question 2

What were some trends that they found for each type of attachment ?

Answer 2

Secure Attachment:
- most common attachment type
- Highest in the Uk and Sweden
- Lowest in China
Insecure Avoidant:
- highest in Germany
- Uncommon in Japan and China
Insecure Resistant:
- highest in Japan, Israel + China
- lowest in Sweden

Question 3

What did Simonelli say about cultural variation of attachment ?

Answer 3

Assessed 76 Italian infants
- 50% were secure
- 36% insecure avoidant
- The percentage of insecure avoidant increases as the mother went back to work as the babies became more independent

Question 4

What did Jin say about cultural variation of attachment ?

Answer 4

• Assessed 87 Korean infants using the strange situation
• Most infants were secure
• Those classified as insecure were most likely to be classified as insecure resistant
• similar to Japan as they have similar ways of bringing up children

Question 5

What are the strengths of cultural variations of attachment research ?

Answer 5

Strength: Van Ijzendoorn used local research
- researchers were native to the country they were studying
- high validity as researchers have a high understanding of their own country

Question 6

What are the limitations of cultural variations of attachment research ?

Answer 6

Cofounding variables: may be differences in environment such as room sizes as they were all constructed in different places and countries
Ethnocentric: Anglo-American method, may interprut behaviors differently to other cultures. E.g Germans raised differently which was misinterpreted as insecure avoidant