cultural variations in attachment Flashcards
what is culture?
refers to groups who share beliefs, values and customs. This can be related to a location but can also refer to religion and other demographics.
name one study that helps prove cross cultural consistency?
Tronick et al. (1992) .Studied an African tribe, living in extended family groups. Infants are looked after and even breast fed by different women but usually sleep with their own mother at night. Despite such differences in child rearing practices the infants, at six months, still showed one primary attachment.
Ainsworth’s Uganda study (1967) was a 2 year naturalistic observation of 26 mothers and interactions with their infants. She found that those mothers who were more sensitive to their infants needs tended to have securely attached children, who cried little and seemed content to explore. This finding was repeated with 26 mothers in the Western, urban setting of Baltimore, US and there was remarkable consistency in the findings.
Fox (1977) studied infants raised on Israeli kibbutzim who spent most of their time being cared for in a communal nursery. Attachment was tested in the Strange Situation with both the nurse and the natural mother. The infants appeared equally attached to both caregivers but mothers were judged to be the primary attachment figure on the basis of their reunion behaviour.
what is cross cultural consistency?
the view that attachment and care giving are universal and not influenced by different cultural practices.
what is cross cultural difference?
the view that attachment and care giving are not universal and are influenced by different cultural practices.
name one study the helps prove cross cultural differences.
Grossman and Grossman (1991) found that German infants tended to be classed as insecurely attached. German culture involves keeping some interpersonal distance between parents and children and children do not engage in proximity seeking behaviours in the strange situation and this results in the insecure label
Takahashi (1990) used the strange situation in Japan and found similar rates of secure attachment as those in the US; however there was no evidence of insecure avoidant attachment but high rates of insecure resistant. The Japanese infants were particularly distressed at being left alone, for 90% of the infants the study had to be stopped at this point - Japanese infants are rarely experience separation from their mothers.
Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a meta analysis of the findings from 32 studies of attachment from 8 different countries – to find out whether differences existed across cultures and whether differences existed within cultures. Differences between cultures were small, secure attachment was the most common classification in every country; avoidant was the next, except for Israel and Japan. However variation within cultures was found to be 1.5 times greater than variation between cultures. What does this mean? E.g. in Britain, we share values related to the dominant culture, we also acquire values from the sub culture that may exist. Social classes may differ in their attitudes to childcare, producing different outcomes with regard to attachment types, but the general conclusion is leaning towards remarkable consistency, supporting a biological element in attachment behaviours.
