Classic Study- van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)

Question 1

What are the aims of this study?

Answer 1

To investigate if any universal attachment styles are the same across cultures, or whether they vary. They used Ainsworth’s strange situation to observe this.

Question 2

Procedures?

Answer 2

They carried out a meta-analysis of 32 other studies across 8 countries, involving almost 2,000 children. They used individualist and collectivist states.

Question 3

Results?

Answer 3

Secure attachment is the most common type in all cultures, and on average the findings correlated with Ainsworth’s original findings.
The lowest finding of secure attachment was in China (at 50%).
Individualistic countries had high levels of anxious avoidant (A), and collectivist had higher of anxious-resistant (C).

Question 4

Conclusions?

Answer 4

The overall consistency in secure attachment suggests that there may be universal characteristics that underpin these interactions. However, this universality is limited, as the other types are irregular.

Question 5

Evaluative strengths.

Answer 5

It uses the strange situation experiment, which is viewed to be operationalized and standardized, so it is reliable. Each researcher uses it in the same way.

It was generalizable, as they used such a worldwide sample.

It’s objective as they used quantitative data.

Question 6

Evaluative weaknesses.

Answer 6

It doesn’t use all countries, so it cannot be representative of everywhere. For example, Africa and South America aren’t represented.

It is ethnocentric and Americanised as it is disproportionally aimed at America- 18/32 studies.

As it was a meta-analysis, they could have interpreted the data to supporr their hypothesis.