cultural variations Flashcards
why is cross-cultural research important?
cross-cultural research is useful in psychology because it allows us to assess the relative importance of nature and nurture
what was Van Ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) procedure into cultural variations of attachment?
they carried out a meta-analysis (this is when the results of the studies were combined and analysed together) of the results of 32 studies of attachment in 8 countries all using the SSP to classify the attachment relationship
this gave results for almost 2000 children
what were Van Ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) findings into cultural variations of attachment?
- secure attachment was the most common type of attachment in all cultures
- significant differences in distribution of insecure attachments - insecure resistant was least common in all countries apart from Israel and Japan, where it was second most common
- greater within culture differences than between cultures
what were Van Ljzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) conclusions to cultural variations of attachment?
- suggests that there are universal features of infant and caregiver interactions and supports Ainsworth research
- however there are influences of culture
what was Simonelli et al. (1984) research into cultural variations of attachment?
-they carried out research in Italy to see if the distribution of attachments were the same today as previous studies
- they assessed 76 twelve month old infants using the SSP
- they found 50% secure and 36% insecure-avoidant
- much lower number of secure attachments
- researchers concluded that this is the consequence of an increasing number of mothers working long hours and using daycare
- this suggests that culture has an effect on attachment type
what were the results of the cross cultural studies using the SSP?
no. of studies % secure % avoidant % resistant
west germany: 3 57 35 8
great britain: 1 75 22 3
netherlands: 4 67 26 7
sweden: 1 74 22 4
israel: 2 64 7 29
japan: 2 68 5 27
china: 1 50 25 25
USA: 18 65 21 14
mean; 65 21 14
AO3: how is ‘validity of this research’ a strength into the research into cultural variations of attachment?
most of the cross-cultural research carried out can be argued to have good validity. this is because most of the studies were carried out by indigenous researchers. by this we mean the researchers are from the same culture and are native.
because of this problems such as misunderstanding language used by the participants or the communication of instructions were avoided
AO3: how is ‘nature versus nurture’ a strength to the research into cultural variations of attachment?
cross-cultural research has found very similar attachment types in different countries around the world. This suggests that how children attach to their primary caregiver is a universal behaviour.
this supports Bowlby because he identified attachement as an innate evolutionary behaviour that humans had evolved to have, therefore we would expect it to be universal.
However, there is also evidence that attachment types are influenced by environment too. (not universal). also, most cultures studied are similar (WEIRD participants) so nurture can’t be ruled out.
AO3: how are ‘confounding variables’ a limitation to the research into cultural variations of attachment?
studies carried out in different countries might have
sample characteristics (such as; poverty, social class, urban/rural make up)
environmental variables (such as; size of the room, availability of interesting toys) that differ between each study
this means any differences observed across studies might be a product of these differences and not because of cultures. So, comparisons of these studies tells us very little about actual cross-cultural patterns
AO3: how is ‘imposed etic’ a limitation to the research into cultural variations of attachment?
an imposed etic is when we assume cross-cultural universitality and that an idea or technique that works in one cultural context will work in another.
an example of this here is looking at how, and measuring how babies respond to being reunited with their caregiver and expecting it to be the same across the globe, in fact it isn’t. in the UK or US, we would take a lack of affection on reunion as a sign the attachment is insecure (avoidant), whereas in Germany they would see it as an indication of independence.
this causes problems because behaviours measured by the SSP may not have the same meaning in different cultural contexts, so comparisons are meaningless.
