Cross-Cultural Variations in attachment Flashcards
What was the purpose of the cross cultural variations?
Ainsworth’s answer to ethnocentric criticisms
What were they investigating the cross-cultural differences of?
Attachment, as a result of child-rearing practices differing across cultures
Give some examples of differing child rearing practices
E.g.
In Germany there is emphasis on early independence in training
Japanese children are rarely separated from their mothers
Some Israeli children are raised in a Kibbutzim (collective community) where they are cared fro by a nurse, meaning multiple children in charge of a child’s care
Who conducted a strange situation study on 60 middle class Japanese infants, with the aim of determining whether the procedure was a valid measurement of attachment in countries other than America and when?
Takahashi (1990)
What did Takahashi aim to do?
Determine whether the Strange Situation procedure was a valid measurement of attachment in countries other than America
Who did Takahashi experiment on?
middle class Japanese infants
How many children were used in Takahashi’s experiment?
60
What were the findings of Takahashi’s study?
USA Japan Difference
Secure ? ? ?
Resistant ? ? ?
Avoidant ? ? ?
USA Japan Difference
Secure 66% 68% +2%
Resistant 22% 32% -22%
Avoidant 12% 0% -12%
What was the Securely attached results from Takahashi’s study?
68%
What was the Insecure avoidant results from Takahashi’s study?
0%
What was the Insecure Resistant results from Takahashi’s study?
32%
Which attachment category was similar in japan and America?
Securely attached (+- 2% difference)
Why was there an absence of insecure avoidant behaviour in Japanese children?
In Japanese culture, not engaging with adults is severely discouraged from a young age - this would have lead them to engage with the strange easier.
Limitation of the Takahashi study
In 90% of cases the ‘baby alone’ phase had to be discontinued. Had this difference not occurred, many more babies would’ve been classified as securely attached because the presence of this distress in some infants led them to being classified as insecure resistant
What did Takahashi conclude from his findings:
Whilst the number of securely attached infants was similar to the American findings, the overall results were considerably different
What evaluation is there for Takahashi’s study?
Small sample size (as with Ainsworth's study) Limited to middle class Japanese children - unreasonable to generalise findings across Japanese children
What type of investigation did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) conduct?
A meta-analysis in which they compiled the results of 32 Strange Situation studies carried out in 8 countries
How many countries were included in the meta-analysis?
8
How many different studies were used in the meta-analysis?
32
Who conducted the meta-analysis and when?
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)
What study took place in the same year as the meta-analysis? (1988)
Main and Cassidy (1988) - disorganized children
Click to reveal the findings of the meta-analysis
Pick a country and discuss its results in comparison with others.
Country %Type A(IA) %Type B(SA) %Type C(IR) No. o
W. Germany 35 57 8 3
GBR 22 75 3 1
Netherlands 26 67 7 4
Sweden 22 74 4 1
Israel 7 64 29 2
Japan 5 68 27 2
China 25 50 25 1
US 21 65 14 18
Overall
Average 21 65 14
What were the general trends of the results of the meta-analysis?
SA = similar results across all cultures
The more IA %’s, the lower the IR %‘s, and vice versa
Higher percentage of IR in Eastern Cultures (collectivist)
Higher percentage of IA in Western Cultures (Individualist)
