Cultural Variations in Attachment Flashcards
What is meant by cross cultural variations?
-Most research conducted in USA - so theories are based on this group of people and assume the same for rest of world
-Psychologists endeavour to look at studies conducted in different cultural settings to see whether their theories are universal to redress balance
-Culture refers to rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting
What was the aim of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?
-Wanted to compare finidings of studies using Strange Situation conducted in different cultures
-Interested in patterns of attachment types between and within cultures
What were the procedures of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?
-A meta-analysis
-Reviewed 32 world-wide studies involving 8 countries and 2,000 children
-Compared studies of mother-infant interaction in strange situation to find any general trends
What were the findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?
-Overall world-wide partern similar to Ainsworth’s
-Type A (avoidant) most common in West Germany than other Western countries. German children encouraged to be independent.
-Type C (resistant) most common in Israel, China and Japan. Japenese children are very rarely left by their mother so would show distress when she leaves.
-Israeli children reared in a Kibbutz so used to being separated - don’t show anxiety when left. Not used to being left with stranger - resistant behaviour
-Marked differences between cultures - in 1 of 2 Japenese studies there were no Type A children but high proportion of Type C
-Overall Type B is the most common
-Type A is relatively more common in Western countries, Type C in Israel and Japan
What was concluded from Van Ijendoorn and Kroonenberg’s meta-analysis?
-Global partern across cultures similar to US
-Secure attachment is the norm
-Supports idea that secure attachment is ‘best’ for healthy social and emotional development
-Suggest cross-cultural similarities might be explained by effects of mass media which spread ideas about parenting so children all over world are exposed to similar influences
What is a strength of the meta-analysis?
Large sample/representation:
-Considers attachment behaviours of a large number of infants - over 2,000
-Countries were both Western and non-Western making the sample representative of a wider population
This overall sample size increases internal validity by reducing the impact of anomalous results
What are 3 limitations of the meta-analysis?
Importance of sub-cultures:
-Criticised for comparing countries not cultures
-In larger countries such as USA, many subcultures exist
-They report differences within a culture are far greater than differences between countries
e.g. study of attachment in Tokyo found similar distributions of attachment in Western stidies, more rural sample found over-representation of insecure-resistant individuals
-In order the cater for all various sub-cultures, the sample would have to be much bigger
Therefore they concluded that great caution should be taken in assuming an individual sample is representative of a particular culture
Problems with imposed etic:
-Used Strange Situation, an american designed study for use on american children
-Questions whether it can be sutiable for other cultures
-Ainsworth assumed separation anxiety was indication of secure attachment, other societies separation anxiety may present other factors
-The result of this could be that Japanese children may appear insecurely attached to Western criteria when securely attached in Japanese standards
Therefore we can only make valid interpretations if we understand the attitudes to child-rearing in that culture
Lack of non-Western data:
-Over half of 32 studies were carried out in US reflecting dominance by America in this research area
-27 studues were in individualistic cultures
-Only 5 in collectivist cultures
This isn’t enough to make a generalisation about attachment patterns.
