Attachment - Cultural variations

Question 1

What did Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis show about the cultural variations in attachment?

Answer 1

-Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg carried out a meta analysis on 32 strange situation studies in 8 different countries, the findings were as follows:
-In all countries secure attachment was the most common type (Type B)
-Generally insecure resistant was the least common type (Type C)
-Avoidant was more common in western cultures
(Type A)
-Resistant was more common in non-western cultures (Type C)
-There was more variation between studies within a country than between cultures

Question 2

What countries were found to be different to the results from the original strange situation study?

Answer 2

• Germany (35%) had the most avoidant attachments
• Japan (27%) and Israel (29%) had the most resistant attachments
• China (50%) had the least secure attachments

Question 3

What were the percentages of each attachment type from studies in the UK?

Answer 3

• 22% Avoidant
• 75% Secure
• 3% Resistant

Question 4

What was the overall conclusion taken from Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis?

Answer 4

• Secure attachment was the globally preferred attachment style
• However there is cultural differences in parenting styles which means there are also high levels of insecure attachment types in some cultures
• German families value independence/”Non-clingy” children which is more reflective of an avoidant attachment style
• Japanese mothers spend a significant amount of time with their infants, this explains extreme reactions to separation that is seen in the strange situation studies in japan

Question 5

How does Simonelli’s study show that cultural variations can be due to a difference in parenting from older generations and more modern generations? (Lacks temporal validity)

Answer 5

• Simonelli carried out a study including 76 strange situation experiments on modern Italian families
• There was a lower number of secure attachments than in historical Italian families
• The modern families were down to only 50% secure and 36% avoidant
• This suggests a healthy shift to more independent children that can cope with the changing demands of modern life

Question 6

What is an advantage of Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis?

Answer 6

• As the study was a meta analysis, this can sometimes mean that due to the large sample size, any poorly conducted studies with unusual results will have only a small effect on the overall results
• This increases the validity of the findings

Question 7

How does Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta analysis support Bowlby’s monotropic theory?

Answer 7

-As the dominant attachment style was “Secure” this supports Bowlby’s monotropic theory that there is a biological instinctive drive to parent in a way that produces secure infant-caregiver attachments