Lesson 5: Cross cultural variations in Attachment Flashcards
Who investigated cross cultural variations in attachment
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg
Fill in the blank:
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg conducted a ____-________ of 32 studies into attachment to see if attachment occurs the SAME WAY across all cultures
meta-analysis
What did all these studies use to measure attachment?
The strange situation
What did these studies look at the relationship between?
Mothers and their babies who were all 24 months of age
How many countries were the studies conducted in?
8
What were the two types of cultures the study use.
INDIVIDUALISTIC cultures (USA,UK + Germany)
COLLECTIVIST cultures (Japan,China and Israel)
What were the main FINDINGS of the study?
1) SECURE attachment was the MOST common attachment in all 8 countries
2) SECOND most common attachment style was insecure-AVOIDANT, except in Israel and Japan-resistant
3) Low % of secure attachment= China
4) High % of secure attachment= UK
5) High % of insecure AVOIDANT attachment was in west Germany
6) variations WITHIN cultures were 1.5x GREATER than variation between cultures
What do these findings suggest?
(Hint: similarities,differences, variations)
-Similarities between cultures SUGGEST that caregiver and infant interactions= UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS-> partly instinctive
-Differences -> CULTURAL differences in CHILD REARING practices also play an IMPORTANT role in attachment style
-VARIATIONS within cultures-> SUB-CULTURAL differences (e.g social class) also play an IMPORTANT role in an infants attachment
State a POSITIVE evaluation of Cultural variation in Attachment
(Hint: Meta-analysis)
This study is a META-ANALYSIS which includes a very LARGE sample.
This increases the validity of findings
State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Cultural variation in attachment
(Hint: methodology + culturally biased)
The strange situation methodology was developed=USA + it may NOT be valid in other cultures.
e.g Ainsworth assumed that a WILLINGNESS to explore means a child is SECURELY attached but this may not be the case in other cultures. This means the methodology= CULTURALLY biased.
State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Cultural variation in attachment
(Hint: kibbutz, strangers)
The infants from Israel in this study lived on a KIBBUTZ (closed community) + did NOT come into contact with STRANGERS.
This could be the reason why these children showed severe DISTRESS when confronted with strangers and so were classed -> insecure-resistant.
State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Cultural variation in attachment
(Hint: Country vs cultures)
This study was not actually comparing CULTURES but COUNTRIES. e.g they compared the USA with Japan.
Both of these countries have many different SUB-CULTURES and that have different child rearing practices.
One study of attachment in TOKYO-> similar ATTACHMENT style DISTRIBUTIONS to the USA, whereas studies in more RURAL areas of Japan found many more insecure-resistant infants.
State a NEGATIVE evaluation of Cultural variation in attachment
(hint: insecurely vs securely attached/ mother vs father)
All of the studies used in this meta-analysis looked at infants’ attachments to their MOTHERS.
Children might be INSECURELY attached to their mothers but SECURELY attached to their fathers.
The strange situation is therefore not measuring a child’s attachment style but their ATTACHMENT-> 1 individual.
Main and Weston (1981) found that children behave differently depending on which parent they are with.
