Cultural Variations

Question 1

Individualist culture

Answer 1

• Emphasis on personal achievement
• Mothers favour independence in infants
  More anti-social behaviour

Question 2

Collectivist culture

Answer 2

Emphasis is on group effort + cooperation
Mothers favour obedience and social behaviour in infants
Less anti-social behaviour

Question 3

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) - aim

Answer 3

wanted to investigate if attachment styles are universal across cultures so they carried out a large-scale meta-analysis (analysed data from 32 studies in 8 different countries)

Question 4

Procedure:

Answer 4

● Looked at proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant and
insecure-resistant attachments across countries
● They also looked at the differences within the same countries to get an idea of variations within a culture
● Analysed data from 32 studies in 8 different countries - around 2000 babies

Question 5

Findings:

Answer 5

● Secure attachment was the most common classification in all countries but ranged from 50% in China to 75% in Britain
● Insecure-avoidant attachment was more common in individualistic cultures
● Insecure-resistant attachment was more common in collectivist cultures ● This suggests that there were cultural differences in the distribution of insecure attachment
The most extreme results were from:
- Germany: 35% insecure-avoidant
- Japan: 27% insecure-resistant