Cultural variations in attachment

Question 1

Who conducted a study into cultural variations in attachment?

Answer 1

Val Ijzendoorn and Krooenberg

Question 2

What was their procedure?

Answer 2

• 32 studies where the strange situation had been used
• 8 countries (15 studies in USA)
• yielded results for 1990
• the data for the 32 studies was meta-analysed
  This means that the results of the studies were combined and analysed together, weighting each study for its sample size

Question 3

What were their findings?

Answer 3

• wide variation of attachment types
• secure attachment was the most common in all countries
• however the proportion varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in China
• in individualist cultures rates of insecure-resistant attachment were similar to Ainsworth’s original sample (all under 14%)
• but this was not true for collectivist cultures from China, Japan and Israel where rates were above 25% (rates of insecure-avoidant attachment were reduced)
• An interesting finding was that variations between results of studies within the same country were actually 150% greater than those between countries. In the USA, for example, one study found only 46% of securely attached compared to one sample as high as 90%

Conclusions:
- secure attachment seems to be the norm in a wide range of cultures, supporting Bowlby’s idea that attachment is innate and universal and this type is the universal norm. However, the research also clearly shows that cultural practices have an influence on attachment type.

Question 4

Evaluation of cultural variations in research

Answer 4

Indigenous researchers:
- those from the same cultural background as the participants
- For example, Val Ijzendoorn and Krooenberg included research by a German team (Grossman) and a Japanese team (Takahashi)
- this means that any potential problems in cross cultural research can be understood (no language barriers)
- difficulties can also include bias because of one nations stereotypes of another
This means that there is an excellent chance that researchers and participants communicated successfully - enhancing the validity of the data collected

confounding variables:
- characteristics such as poverty, social class can confound results as can the age of participants studied in different countries and environmental challenges
- baby may explore more in a smaller interesting (toy full) room rather than a large bare one
- less visible proximity seeking because of room size may make a child more likely to be classified as avoidant
This means that looking at attachment behaviour in different non matched studies conducted in different countries may not tell us anything about cross cultural patterns of attachment

Imposed etic:
- Emic = cultural uniqueness
- Etic = cross-cultural university

• imposed etic occurs when we impose an idea that works in one cultural context to another, such as how we interpret behaviour patterns
  This means that the behaviours measure by the strange situation may not have the same meanings in different cultural contexts, and comparing them across cultures is meaningless

Competing explanations:
- Bowlby states that attachment types are innate and universal
- Val Ijzendoorn and Krooenberg state that global media represents a particular view of how parents and babies are meant to behave. This may override traditional cultural differences in the way children are brought up