cultural variations in attachment

Question 1

outline what Van Izendoorn and Kroonenberg did

Answer 1

• conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies using 8 countries all using strange situation procedure

Question 2

outline the findings of VI+K

Answer 2

• highest percentage of secure = sweden (74%, 1 study)
• highest percentage of avoidant = germany (35%, 3 studies)
• highest percentage of resistant = israel (29%, 2 studies)
• china had equal percentage of both insecure types (25%), also had the lowest percentage of secure attachment type (50%)
• overarching/key finding = higher levels of variation within a culture than between cultures

Question 3

evaluate VI+K

Answer 3

• lacks external validity = wanted to measure cultural variations, however there may be multiple cultures within a country e.g. rural and urban areas
• lacks population validity = doesn’t include any african, south american or oceanic countries/very europe heavy, therefore cannot generalise universally
• high replicability and reliability = used 1990 children/32 studies, decreases likelihood that the observed results were a one off
• imposed etic and negative implications = applying the technique of strange situation is imposed etic because it is based off of western norms and attachments and therefore can give a skewed perception of the attachments in other countries/places countries with higher levels of insecure attachment in a negative light - this has negative ethical implications as it potentially suggests that parents within certain countries are worse parents because of higher levels of insecure attachment types -> links to imposed etic
• Yeo - due to differences in child-rearing practices, aboriginal children are more likely to be put into care due to incorrect assessment of being insecurely attached