Cultural Variations Flashcards
Who researched cultural variations in attachment?
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg
What was the method of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?
The gathered results from different psychologists who all used the strange situation. This created a sample of nearly 2000 children and in total 32 studies were collected from 8 different countries. This formed a meta analysis
What were the overall findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenbergs study?
- Secure attachments is the norm on the majority of cultures
- The lowest percentage of secure attachment was shown in China and the highest in Great Britain
- Difference in attachment within a culture are far greater (1.5 times) than those found between cultures
What country showed the highest avoidant behaviour?
Germany
What countries showed the highest resistant behaviour?
Israel and Japan
Who completed the strange situation in Japan?
Takahashi
What did Takahashi do and find?
60 middle class Japanese infants and their mothers were tested in the strange situation. The found similar rates of secure attachment as Ainsworth did in America but the Japanese infants showed no evidence of insecure avoidant attachment but high levels of resistant attachment (32%). This could be because traditional Japanese child rearing involves the mother rarely of ever leaving the child
Who conducted the strange situation in Israel?
Fox
What did Grossman find?
49% of German infants were insecure avoidant. The reason for this was because parents valued independence and wanted their children to be self reliant. Therefore the children showed little concern when the caregiver left. In Germany, secure attachment was seen by the German parents as evidence of clinging and spoilt children so therefore children showed much lower levels of secure attachment (40%)
What is an explanation as to the differences between cultures?
If they are classified as a collectivist culture or an individualistic culture
What is a collectivist culture?
They prefer obedience and social behaviour and has a sense of group cooperation
What is an individualistic culture?
They focus on personal achievement and mothers prefer independent children
What are two ways that cultural variations can support attachment?
This meta analysis shows most countries do seem to have a similar pattern supporting the ideas that secure attachment is the best form of attachment for healthy social and emotional development. It also supports Bowlbys idea that attachments are innate so the need to form this initial bond should be genetic and experienced by the infants of every culture
What are four limitations of cultural variations?
The strange situation was designed in America so may be culturally specific, we cannot be sure that all of the studies were carried out in the same way as there may have been translation issues and issues with understanding procedure, it doesn’t take into account the difference between collectivist and individualistic cultures so the research is ethnocentric and the study used small samples so doesn’t give an accurate picture therefore it may not be representative
What did Fox do and find?
The studied infants who spend most of their time being cared for in a communal children’s homes by a nurse. Attachment was tested in the strange situation with the nursemaid mother. The infants were equally attached to both caregivers except in the reunion behaviour they showed a greater attachment to the mothers which suggests that the mothers are still the primary attachment figure. However the infants are not used to strangers so got distressed when left alone which explains the high percentage of resistant behaviour therefore children show distress when with a stranger
