Cultural Variations in Attachment - van Ijzendoorn Flashcards
what are cultural variations
Cultural variations: differences between cultures
e.g. differences in attachment types between different cultural groupings.
what is culture
The rules, customs, morals and ways of interacting that bind together members of a society or some other collection of people.
what is subculture
A group within a country that, although it shares many of the dominant cultural characteristics of that country, may also have some special different characteristics.
what is an individualist cultures
Importance is placed on the individual and achieving your own personal goals.
Being able to stand on your own two feet (independence) is valued.
E.g. USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden.
what is a collectivist culture
Importance is placed on the group as a whole.
e.g. Groups live and work together sharing tasks, belongings and child bearing
They aspire to be dependent on each other rather than function as individuals.
E.g. China, Israel, Japan.
van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) procedure
Procedure:
They conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies from 8 countries that used the Strange Situation procedure, to assess similarities and differences in patterns of attachment types between (inter-cultural) and within (intra-cultural) cultures.
In total, the 32 studies examined 1,990 Strange Situation classifications (infants).
All studies comprised at least 35 mother-infant pairs with infants below 2 years of age.
what is a meta-analysis
A META-ANALYSIS is a research method which collates and analyses data from many studies carried out by different researchers, gaining a broad overview of findings.
What was the most common attachment type across the 8 countries studied?
secure
Which 3 countries had the highest levels of insecure-resistant attachment types?
Japan (middle) - 27%
China (lowest) - 25%
Israel (highest) - 29%
Which country had the highest level of insecure-avoidant types?
Germany - 35%
Key Findings: van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)
Secure attachment was the most common classification in every country.
Insecure-avoidant attachment was the next most common in individualistic countries e.g. UK, USA.
Insecure-resistant attachment was more common in Israel, Japan and China (collectivist countries).
Intra-cultural (within cultures) differences were 1.5x greater than inter-cultural differences; Inter-cultural (between cultures) differences were small.
Conclusions: van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg
The global pattern across cultures appears to be similar to that found in the USA, in that secure attachment is the ‘norm’- it is the most common form of attachment in all countries
These cultural similarities therefore support the view that attachment is a innate. who’s theory does this support
This supports Bowlby’s monotropic theory.
what does research suggest about some cultures
The researchers suggest that at least some cultural similarities might be explained by the effects of mass media (e.g. TV and books), which spread ideas about parenting norms (e.g. the need for sensitivity and responsiveness), so children throughout the world are exposed to similar influences.
This means that cultural similarities may not be due to innate biological influences, but are because of our increasingly global culture.
What could explain the variation found within cultures?
Some intra-cultural differences may be due to socio-economic differences or the different child-rearing practices across sub-cultures.
e.g. some USA samples were of middle-class pairings, while other USA samples used pairings from poorer socio-economic backgrounds.