cultural variations in attachment van ijzerdoorn Flashcards
van ijzerdoorn 1998 aim
promotions of secure insecure avoidant insecure resistant acrosss a range of countries , also looked at the differences within countries .
procedure
researchers located 32 studies of attachment where the SS had been used to investigate the proportions of infants with different attachment types.
32 studies were conducted in 8 countries , 15 were in the USA . overall the 32 studies yielded results for 1990 chidlren . the data for these 32 studies was meta analysed. results being combined and weighted for sample size.
findings
wide variation between he proportion of attachment type in different studies
in all countries secure was the most common classification
proportion varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in china
insecure reistant was least common from 3% in Britain to 30% is Israel
insecure avoidant was most common in Germany and least in Japan
- variations between results of studie within the same country were 150% greater then those between.
strength
large samples
combining results from different studies carried out in diff countries = big sample
van ijzendoorn had a total of nearly 2000 babies in their meta analysis and their primary attachment figure
even timonella et al and jin et al had large comparisons groups from previous research even tho there own samples were smaller
- a strength as large samples increase internal validity by reducing the impact of anamololus results cause by bad methodlogy or very unusual participants
limitation
samples tend to be unrepresentative of cultures
Meta analysis b e van ijzendoorn and kroonberg claimed to study culture variation whereas in fact the comparison was between COUNTIRES not CULTURES.
within nay country there is different cultures each with different child rearing practices
one sample might over represent people living in. poverty the stress of which might affect care giving and hence patterns of attachment
- an analysis by van ijzendoorn and sagi 2001 found that distributions of attachment type in Tokyo an urban setting were similar to western studies . whereas a more rural sample had an over representation of insecure resistant individuals.
– this means that comaprrisons between countries may have little meaning , the particular cultural characteristics of the ample need to be specified
limitation
method of assignment is biased
the SS was designed by an amei an researcher Ainsworth based on a British theory bowlby . there is a question over other anglo - American theories and assessments can be applied to other cultures. trying to apply theory deigned for one culture to another is called imposed etic
- ie am example of imposed etic may be the idea that a la ck of separation anxiety and lack of pleasure on reunion indicate an insecure attachment in the SS. in germany this behaviour might be seen more as independence then avoidance and hence not a sign of insecurity within the cultural context GROSSMAN AND GROSSMAN 1990