Cultural Variations In Attachment

Question 1

Define culture

Answer 1

Rules, customs, traditions, values, morals and beliefs that bind members of a society together. We learn these rules through socialisation eg upbringing

Question 2

Define subculture

Answer 2

A group within a culture/society that shares many of the dominant cultural characteristics of that society but also has distinctive characteristics of their own

Question 3

Individualistic culture and examples

Answer 3

Value importance on independence and the individual. Eg Germany, Netherlands, USA, Sweden, UK

Question 4

Collectivist culture and examples

Answer 4

Places more value on collective and interdependence. Eg Israel, Japan, China

Question 5

Van Izjendoorn and Kroonenberg AIM AND PROCEDURE

Answer 5

Aim - to see if Ainsworths situation was culturally biased and had an imposed etic

Procedure - meta analysis looking through databases to find multiple studies on attachment and used ones that used the strange situation as part of the procedure. They looked at over 2000 strange situations classifications from 32 studies and 8 countries

Question 6

Van Izjendoorn and Kroonenberg RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Answer 6

summary of findings
Secure attachment was most common and ranged from 75% to 50% in all 8 cultures - similar to Ainsworths 66%
Insecure avoidant was highest in West Germany (I) at 35% compared to Ainsworths 22%
Insecure resistant was the highest in Israel (C) at 29% compared to Ainsworths 12%
Chinas population is 50% secure and 50% insecure

Conclusion
Secure is the most common attachment type which supports Ainsworth. Best for social and emotional development

Question 7

EVALUATION - Are there cultural variations in Ainsworths strange situation or are attachment types universal?

Answer 7

No cultural variations - Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg found secure attachments most common in all eight countries ranging from 50% in china to 75% in Britain supports Ainsworths 66% . However strange situation was created and tested in USA so western perspective eg babies in Japan are hardly separated from mother so there is an imposed etic. Attachment type could be down to nurture.

There are cultural variations - cultural differences between individualistic and collectivist cultures - Japan collectivist where babies are hardly separated from mother - Takashi replicated the strange situation and found it posed more of a threat than western cultures and babies were mostly classified as insecure due to key differences in parenting in collectivistic and individualistic cultures - however strange situation could be causing the issue and may not be fit to measure attachment related to Japanese culture.

Cultural differences within same cultures - Grossman and Grossman studied attachment in German families and found more infants were insecurely attached. Vik also found a much higher proportion of insecure avoidant attachment types (35%) than in America - Ainsworths wrong to assume attachment is the same all over the world and culture does impact attachment style. German children encouraged to be independent. However socially sensitive as parenting judged.