Cultural variation Flashcards
1
Q
Who studied cultural variations in attachments?
A
Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg
2
Q
What was kroonenberg et als aim?
A
- investigate cross-cultural variations in attachment
- wanted to investigate if attachment styles (secure and insecure) are universal (the same) across cultures, or culturally specific (vary considerably from place to place, due to traditions, the social environment, or beliefs about children).
3
Q
What was Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg’s (1988) method?
A
- Meta-analysis of 32 studies from 8 different countries that used Ainworth’s strange situation
- Included around 2000 infants
4
Q
What did the cultural variation studies have in common? How did they analyse them? (2)
A
- All the 32 studies used the strange situation procedure to study attachment.
- Using a meta analysis (statistical technique) they calculated the average percentage for the different attachment styles (e.g. secure, avoidant, resistant) in each country.
5
Q
Findings of kroonenberg et als study? (6)
A
- found that secure attachment was the majority of infants (70%).
- The lowest percentage of secure attachments was shown in China, and the highest in Great Britain.
- It was also found that Western countries that support independence such as Germany had high levels of insecure avoidant.
- Whereas Eastern countries that are more culturally close, such as Japan, had quite high levels of insecure resistant. - The exception to the pattern was China which an equal number of avoidant and resistant infants.
- Found variation and differences within cultures was 1.5 times higher than variations between cultures
6
Q
Who studied cultural similarities?
A
Tronick et al.
7
Q
Describe Tronick et al. (1992)’s study
A
- Efe tribe, located Africa, live extended family groups
- Infants are looked after and breastfed by different women within social group
- Infants tend to sleep with mother at night
- Infants showed preference for primary attachment figure at 6 months
- Supports Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg’s main findings that secure attachment is most common globally
8
Q
Who studied cultural differences?
A
Grossman and Grossman
9
Q
Describe Grossman and Grossman’s (1991) study
A
- In German culture, child rearing practices favour independence from young age, where infants don’t seek interpersonal contact with parents
- ∴ infants tend to appear insecurely attached in Ainworth’s strange situation as they don’t seek proximity to their mothers
10
Q
Elaborate -ve evaluation on imposed etics (5)
A
- Based on western cultural values may not translate into same meaning in other cultures/countries
- e.g. Ainsworth’s research was assumed that children who were willing to explore = “securely attached” based on western values
- cultural perception and understanding of behavior differ greatly. For example, the belief that attachment is related to anxiety on separation. This may not be the case in other cultures, e.g. Japan.
- However, dependence encouraged in Japanese culture as form of secure attachment so ∴ limits such behaviour and translates incorrectly in Ainsworth’s strange situation
- = studies lack validity as they’re not measuring true attachment across cultures but only western ideals of secure attachment
11
Q
Elaborate on -ve evaluation on biased sample in kroonenbergs study (3)
A
- 27/32 studies were carried out in individualistic cultures
- ∴ results biased towards individualistic culture norms ∴ we can’t accurately generalise results to collectivist cultures → lowering population validity
- BUT overall sample size (over 1900 infants) is strength ∵ research in this area use smaller numbers
12
Q
Elaborate on the evaluation point: Criticised for comparing countries not cultures
A
- Within each country = many different subcultures, each with own way of childrearing
- BUT researchers found variance within countries was greater than between countries
- So they ∴ should collect data on subcultures within countries they investigated rather than whole nation
