van ijendoorn and kroonenberg Flashcards
(10 cards)
what was the aim?
to look for cross cultural patterns of attachment (inter-cultural variations) and also within cultures (intra-cultural variations)
what was the method?
it was a meta analysis
- using secondary data from separate studies and analysing and comparing in order to find patterns
- important that criteria are agreed and acted upon - their criteria was only studies of the strange situation giving ABC classifications were included and studies had to involve children under 2
what are the results?
- in all but one study type b was the most common except in china
- one of the german studies (grossmann) showed that type a was the most common
- there were significant intercultural and intracultural differences
what was the conclusion?
secure attachment is the most common one both within america and collectively
- this provides a strong argument for the universality of attachment and provides validity to ainsworth strange situation
what is a strength?
the use of a large sample
- different countries/cultures were used which increases the representativeness of data as the impact of anomalies would be reduced
what is the competing argument of the strength?
some countries were barely represented
- in 3/8 of the countries there was just one sample and in the other 2 countries just 2 samples and america 18!
- this makes intercultural comparisons somewhat meaningless as each sample may be atypical
what is a weakness?
the study compares all cultures to american culture - japanese children were classed as more insecurely attached as US children
- does attachment theory have a cultural bias itself by assuming an individualistic society as producing traits that are most desired i.e. dependence
how can it be applied?
our knowledge about cultural differences in attachment are important for day care
- if there are differences, then it is important for people working in day care facilities to shape their behaviours for the child’s expectations of how a parent should behave
what is a strength of support from cassiba?
cassiba et al’s meta analysis validates their findings because they also found differences in attachment types between cultures when comparing italian attachment types to other cultures
- italy is an individualistic culture and they suggested that fostering independence leads to a higher % of avoidant attachment types
what is a weakness of it not working for japanese culture?
takahashi (1990) suggests that the procedure is not appropriate for japanese mothers where it is normal for mothers and babies to not be separated
- this means it is expected to see a high level of separation anxiety
