Cross Cultural Variations In Attachment

Question 1

What did Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg do (1988)

Answer 1

Conduct a meta-analysis of 32 studies into attachment to see if attachment occurs the same way across cultures

Question 2

What scenario did all the meta analysis studies use to measure attachment

Answer 2

The strange situation
Looking at relationships between mothers and babies under 2 years old

Question 3

What countries were the studies conducted in

Answer 3

8 countries
Individualistic cultures (e.g. USA, Germany, UK)
& collectivist cultures (Japan, China & Israel)

Question 4

What was the most common attachment style in all of the 8 countries studied

Answer 4

Secure attachment

Question 5

What was the 2nd most common style

Answer 5

Insecure-avoidant
(Except in Israel & Japan, where avoidant = rare, but resistant = common)

Question 6

What country had the lowest % of secure attachments

Answer 6

China

Question 7

What country had the highest secure attachment %

Answer 7

Great Britain

Question 8

Overall variations within cultures were […] greater than the variation between different cultures

Answer 8

1.5 times

Question 9

What do the similarities between different cultures suggest

Answer 9

That caregiver & infant interactions have universal characteristics & so may be partly instinctive

Question 10

What do variations between cultures show

Answer 10

That cultural differences in children rearing practices also play an important role in attachment styles

Question 11

What do variations WITHIN cultures indicate

Answer 11

That factors such as social class also play a role in attachment
- and these may be more important than culture

Question 12

(+) about cultural variation investigation - that it’s a meta analysis

Answer 12

Bc it’s a meta analysis = large sample = increased validity of findings

Question 13

(-) about strange situation methodology; cultural bias

Answer 13

Was developed in US so may not be valid to use to measure other cultures
E.g. willingness to explore may not be secure attachment

Question 14

(-) Israel Infants Kibbutz & how that affected findings

Answer 14

The Israeli infants lived on a Kibbutz (a closed community) & did not come into contact with strangers, which could be the reason why these children showed severe distress when confronted with strangers (& were then classed as resistant)

Question 15

(-) comparing cultures… or Countries?

Answer 15

E.g by comparing the USA & Japan
- both have very different sub-cultures, that have different child rearing practices

One Tokyo attachment style distribution may be similar to the USA, but rural areas of Japan may have more insecure resistant infants

Question 16

(-) not taking into account multiple attachments etc

Answer 16

Studies in the meta-analysis only looked at attachment to the mother; children may be insecurely attached to mother, but not father
-> strange situation only measures a child’s attachment to one individual, not overall

Question 17

Main & Weston (1981) found that…

Answer 17

Children behave differently depending on what parent they’re with