Cross Cultural Variations in Attachment

Question 1

What are Cross Cultural Variations?

Answer 1

• Culture refers to the norms and values that exist within any group of people.
• Variations are the differences in the norms and values that exist between people.
• In attachment we are concerned with the differences in the proportion of children with different attachment types.

Question 2

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s Aim

Answer 2

• To asses the proportion of secure, insecure avoidant and insecure resistant attachments across a range of cultures.

Question 3

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s Procedure

Answer 3

• Meta Analysis of 32 studies using the strange situation carried out in 8 different countries.
• 18 Studies in the USA.
• Studies yielded for 1,990 children.
• Data for the studies were meta analysed in that results were combined and weighted for sample size.
• Included Western cultures and non western cultures.

Question 4

Van Ijezendoorn and Kroonenberg’s Findings

Answer 4

• Secure attachment was the most common in all cultures.
• Insecure avoidant was the most common in Germany.
• Insecure resistant was the most common in Israel and Japan.
• Variation within countries was 1.5 larger than between cultures.
• 75% of Britain were Secure attachment being the most popular and 3% insecure resistant being the least popular.
• Insecure avoidant and insecure resistant were of equal percentage in China.

Question 5

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s Conclusion

Answer 5

• Secure Attachment seems to be the norm in a wide range of cultures, supporting Bowlby’s idea that attachment is innate.
• Despire cultural infants in infant care, strongest attachments are still formed with mother.

Question 6

Evaluation of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - Large Sample

Answer 6

• 2000 babies in the meta analysis.
• Researchers across the globe ensured they used the same methods and standardised procedures to investigate attachment.
• Strength - increases internal validity. Can be confident that results are unlikely to be caused by anomalous results or unusual participants.

Question 7

Evaluation of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - universality

Answer 7

• Supporting research can help determine any universal behaviours amongst attachment.
• Secure attachment was the most common form of attachment across various cultures.
• Strength - allows us to establish universal laws of behaviour and generalise findings globally.

Question 8

Evaluation of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - biased method

Answer 8

• Designed by an American researcher based on a British theory.
• Danger that Anglo-American researchers are analysing findings in a biased manner based on their own cultural beliefs.
• Weakness - researchers may be wrongly imposing cultural specific beliefs onto other cultures.

Question 9

Evaluation of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - sample is unrepresentative of culture.

Answer 9

• Only looked at comparison between countries and not cultures.
• Within countries there are many different cultures each with different child rearing practices.
• German infants were classified as insecure avoidant. This may be because of different child rearing practices in Germany, who value independence and self reliance. Japanese infants showed no evidence of insecure avoidant attachment and high rates of insecure resistant. Results may be due to different child rearing practices as in Japanese culture, dependency is highly valued and is normal for Japanese infants to be rarely separated from their mothers.
• Weakness - infants would respond differently due to their culture and be wrongly labelled.