Cultural variations in attachment Flashcards
Who conducted an experiment into cultural variation in attachment?
Van Ijzendoorn
What was the procedure of Van Ijzendoorn’s study?
- Conducted a meta analysis of 32 different studies from 8 different countries
- All studies used the same strange situation and looked at mother - infant analysis
What were the results of Van Ijzendoorn’s study?
Great Britain- 75% secure attachment type (highest)
Germany- 35% avoidant attachment type (highest)
Israel- 29% resistant attachment type (highest)
China- 50% secure attachment type (lowest)
Japan- 5% avoidant attachment type (lowest)
Great Britain- 3% resistant attachment type (lowest)
If the point is:
A strength of research into cultural variations in attachment is that the research supports universal laws of behaviour to explain attachment.
What is the evidence and link?
Evidence- For example, Van Ijzendoorn found secure attachment to be the most common attachment type across all cultures they studied.
Link- This suggests that Bowlby’s monotropic theory is correct, as he viewed attachment to be innate and the fact that Ijzendoorn found that differing cultural norms had minimal impact on the popularity of type B suggests this could be hardwired.
If the point is:
A strength of research into cultural variations in attachment is that it can be considered high in reliability because it uses the strange situation procedure.
What is the evidence and link?
Evidence- This is highly replicable because it uses standardised procedures. For example, all 32 studies used the same 8 episodes.
Link- This implies that we can use the same procedure to check the consistency of findings such as those from Van Ijzendoorn’s meta analysis.
If the point is:
A weakness of research into cultural variations in attachment is that it could be argued that the findings lack validity, as it could be considered to be culturally biassed.
What is the evidence and link?
Evidence- For example, in Van Ijzendoorn’s research, the studies selected in the meta analysis were predominantly Western, such as Japan, West Germany and Britain.
Link- Therefore, the findings of this research may not actually show meaningful differences and could be harmful in assuming Western ideas on attachment are best.
If the point is:
A weakness of research into cultural variations in attachment is that it’s hard to generalise the findings to the whole culture being studied.
What is the evidence and link?
Evidence- China only had a total of 25 infants in one study included in the data, so this does not represent the country as a whole.
Link- This suggests that the sample used was far too small to be able to generalise to the entire culture, implying that the findings may not be fully representative.
What is the conclusion of Van Ijzendoorn’s study?
- Data suggests there are differences between cultures in attachment styles, suggesting parents raise children differently across the world
- Greater emphasis on type A attachments in German culture
- Type C was found more in Israel, China, Japan
- Secure attachment is ‘best’ for healthy development
