Attachment - Cultural variations

Question 1

Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) - procedure

Answer 1

They conducted a meta-analysis of the findings from 32 studies of attachment behaviour. This involved nearly 2000 strange situation studies in 8 different countries.

Question 2

Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) - findings

Answer 2

They found differences were small, with secure attachment the most common classification in every country.
Insecure-avoidant attachment was the next most common except in Israel and Japan, where insecure-resistant attachment was the next most common.

Variation within cultures was 1.5 times greater than variation between cultures.

The conclusion was that the global pattern across cultures appears to be similar to that found in the US, i.e secure attachment is the ‘norm’
The presence of these cultural similarities supports the idea that secure attachment is ‘best’ for healthy social and emotional development.

Question 3

What AO3 are you using for cultural variations?

Answer 3

May not be innately determined.
They were studying differences in countries rather than cultures.
The research ‘tools’ lack validity…the strange situation has assumptions that are specific to its country of origin (USA). It assumes ‘willingness to explore’ is a sign of secure attachment. However, in Japan dependence rather than indepence is a sign of this (van IJzendoorn and Sagi, 2001)