cultural variations in attachment Flashcards
What is an individualistic culture
A culture is one which emphasises personal independence and achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition
What is a collectivist culture
One which emphasises family and work goals above individual needs and desires, there is a high degree of interdependence between people
What would we see if Bowlby’s view that attachment has evolved is true
Then you would expect to see similar patterns of attachment cross- culturally
However, dun dun DUN, if patterns differ cross-culturally then it is better explained by learned environmental cultural differences rather than biologically passed down through evolution
Explain the results for the Japanese secure %
Japan is a collectivist culture (what is that again kids…?) by western standards, japanese children are very rarely left by tjheir mother so the distress they show when she leaves is probably more due to shock than insecure attachment; this can also be seen when they are left alone with the stranger which is likely to be due to the mothers absense
Explain the results for the GB and US secure percentage
I want to kms, I just deleted this flashcard and now I have to rewrite it all out ughhhhhh - also hey future elishka and avani, is ur mental health as bad as mine is now?
They are both individualistic and so we encourage indeopendance as well as not being reliant on others, hence the exploration behaviour. Many children are used to being in daycxare and so are not used to strangers which could explain the avoidant behaviour on separation
Explain the results for the West Germany secure percentage
This highlights a high percentage of avoidant behaviour, typical of independant behaviour. This is not surprising (lmao wtf) given that Grossman et al (he was just a rlly gross man haahahah) in 1985 said that German parents seek ‘independant, non clingy infants, who do not make demands on parents but obey their commands’ - easy there hitler
What was the Italian and Korean study about cultural variations in attachment
- Simonella et al (2014) conducted a study using the strange situation. Only 50% of infants were securely attached (n=76 12 month olds)
- The researchers suggest this change could be due to increasing numbers of mothers working longer hours
- A Korean study: Jin et al (2012) - 87 children were assessed, most infants were securely attached. More of those classified as insecurely attached were resistant which was sim to Japajn
Give some positive evalutation of cultural variations in attachment
LARGE SAMPLE
- there were nearly 2000 babies in van IJzendoorn’s meta analysis
- Increased interal validity by reducing the impact of anomalous results
Give some negative evaluation of blah blah blah the title yh you get it
Samples tend to be unrepresentative of culture
- Meta analysis was between countries not cultures
- What about cultures within a countries? Social economic status?
- van IJzendoorn and Sagi (2001) found that distributions of attachment type in Tokyo were similar to the Western studies, whereas rural samples had an over representation of insecure resistant individuals
Give some negative evaluation etcc
Method of assessment is biased:
- The strange situation was designed by an American researcher based on a British theory - imposed etic ??
- An example of this is that a lack of separation anxiety and a lack of pleasure on reunion indicates an insecure attachment
- In Germany, this behaviour might be seen as independence than avoidance
Give some more negative evaluation for this etc
- van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg proposed an alternative possibility to Bowlby’s innate attachment theory
- Small cross cultural differences may reflect the effects of the mass media, in which books and television programmes ‘that advocate similar notions of parenting are disseminated across countries
