Attachment : Cultural Variations Flashcards
What was the Aim of Van Ijzendoorn’s study?
Van Ijzendoorn investigated whether cultural variations (e.g., variations in child-rearing practices in
different countries) affect individual differences in attachment types.
What was the procedure of Van Ijzendorn’s Study?
Van IJzendoorn’s research was cross-cultural, meaning he compared the attachment behaviours of children in different cultures. He conducted a meta-analysis of 32 separate Strange Situation studies from 8 different countries (the
UK, US, Sweden, Japan, China, Holland, Germany & Israel).
What were the findings from IJzendoorn’s study?
• There were consistencies across cultures.
> Across all cultures, secure attachment type was the most common.
• However, there were also significant variations between countries.
> The proportions of secure varied significantly, with the highest being 75% in the UK and
the lowest being 50% in China.
> The proportions of insecure-resistant also varied significantly. It was lowest in the UK
(3%) and highest in Israel (29%).
> The proportions of insecure-avoidant also varied significantly, with the lowest being
Japan (5%) and the highest being Germany (30%).
• Intra-cultural variation (meaning variation of attachment types within a country) variation was nearly 15 times greater than the cross-cultural variations (between country variations).
What is a Strength of Van Ijzendoorn’s findings on the cultural variations in attachment?
They provide support for the understanding of attachment presented by Ainsworth and Bowlby. Van Ijzendoorn did find that across all cultures, the secure attachment type was the most common,
but he also found considerable variations in attachment types between and within cultures. The finding on the dominance of the secure attachment type supports Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
research, as she also observed that the secure attachment type was the most common (70% of her participants displayed this attachment type). Moreover, it also supports Bowlby’s monotropic theory. This is because Bowlby suggested that humans have an innate need to form a secure
attachment to their main caregiver (i.e., a monotropic relationship). Therefore, we would expect
most infants to form a secure attachment type, regardless of the culture they were raised in.
What is a Limitation of Van Ijzendoorn’s research?
His research is Socially sensitive. According to Sieber and Stanley, socially sensitive research has social consequences either for the participants or for the social groups they represent. Van Ijzendoorn’s has the potential to cause social harm to the national groups involved in the research. For example, Van Ijzendoorn’s finding that China has a high proportion of insecure children might be
interpreted by some as evidence of the inferiority of Chinese parenting. Arguably, Van IJzendorrn’s research
actually tips over into outright ethnocentrism*, as its findings could be interpreted as implying that some cultures (those like the UK, which have high proportions of secure verus insecure attachment types) are
superior to those, such as China, with higher incidence of insecure attachments
Why is meta analysis a strength of Van Ijzendoorns’ research into the cultural variations in attachment?
A meta-analysis uses statistical techniques to combine the findings from relevant studies and draw an overall conclusion. Van Ijzendoorn’s use of the meta-analysis strengthens his conclusions on the cultural variations in
attachment as meta-analyses are regarded as the strongest form of scientific evidence. One reason for this is
that by combing the results of multiple studies, meta-analyses essentially create one giant super-sample, and
the size of this sample makes Van Ijzendoorn’s findings more representative. This means we can be confident
that Van Ijzendoorn’s findings on cultural variations in attachment can be generalised to children outside the
study’s sample. However, Van Ijzendoorn’s meta-analysis – like all meta-analyses - are vulnerable to publication bias. Since meta-analyses rely only on published studies, meta-analyses may fail to take into account unpublished findings, and this skews their findings towards exciting or positive results. Consequently,
Van IJzendoorn’s findings need to be treated with caution as his study may have missed out relevant data on cultural variation on attachment
