Cultural Variations in Attachment - Van Izjendoorn

Question 1

What was Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study looking at?

Answer 1

Proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachments across countries to assess cultural variation

Question 2

What did they look at regarding same countries?

Answer 2

Differences within same countries to get an idea of variations within culture

Question 3

What is the procedure for Van Izjendoorn and Kroonenburg’s study?

Answer 3

• researchers located 32 studies of attachment where strange situation had been used
• conducted in 8 countries - 15 in USA
• studies yielded results from 1,990 children
• data for these 32 studies was meta-analysed = results were combined and analysed together, weighing each study for its sample size

Question 4

What were the findings of Van Izjendoorn and Kroonenburg’s study?

Answer 4

• wide variation between the most common classification
• proportion varied from 75% in Britain to 50% in china
• individualist cultures rates of insecure-resistant were similar to Aisnworths original sample
• this was not true for collectivist samples from China, Japan and Israel where rates were above 25%

Question 5

What was an interesting finding of the study to do with variations between results within the same country

Answer 5

• variations between results of studies within the same country were actually 15% greater than those between countries
• e.g. in the USA one study found only 46% to be securely attached compared to one sample as high as 90%

Question 6

What did Simonelli do?

Answer 6

Conducted a study in Italy to see wether the proportions of babies of different attachment types still match those found in previous studies

Question 7

How many babies were studies and how in Simonelli’s study?

Answer 7

76 babies aged 12 months using strange situation

Question 8

What were the findings of Simonelli’s study?

Answer 8

• 50% secure
• 36% insecure-avoidant

Question 9

What were the conclusions from results in Simonelli’s study?

Answer 9

• Lower rate of secure and higher rate of insecure-avoidant Han found in other studies
• Researchers suggest this is because increasing numbers of others of babies work long hours and use professional childcare
• findings suggest patters of attachment types are not static but vary in line with cultural change

Question 10

what did Mi Kyoung Jin et al do?

Answer 10

Conducted a study comparing the proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies

Question 11

How did Mi Kyoung Jin et al assess these babies and how many were there?

Answer 11

87 babies using strange situation

Question 12

What were the overall proportions of insecure and secure babies?

Answer 12

• Similar to those in most countries with babies being secure
• but more of those classified as insecurely attached were resistant and one baby was avoidant

Question 13

What is the distribution in Mi Kyoung Jin et als study?

Answer 13

• distribution is similar to distribution of attachment types found in Japan

Question 14

What were the overall conclusions of cultural variation in attachment?

Answer 14

• secure is the norm in a range of cultures supporting Bowlby’s idea attachment is innate and universal and this type is the universal norm
• research shows cultural practices have an influence on attachment type

Question 15

One strength is that most studies were conducted by indigenous psychologists

Answer 15

• indigenous psychologists = those from the same cultural background as ppts
• e.g. Van Izjendoorn and Kroonenburg included research by a German team and Takashi who is Japanese
• this means many potential cross-cultural research problems can be avoided
• excellent chance that researchers and ppts communicated successfully enhancing validity of data

Question 16

One limitation of cross-cultural research is confounding variables on findings

Answer 16

• studies done in different countries aren’t usually matched for methodology when compared in reviews or meta-analysis
• sample characteristics e.g. poverty can confound results as can age of ppts studied in diff countries
• environmental variables can also differ and confound results
  -e.g. size of room and availability of toys
• looking at attachment behaviour in non-matched studies in diff countries may not tell us anything about cross-cultural patterns of attachment

Question 17

A second limitation is trying to impose a test designed for one cultural context to another context

Answer 17

• imposed etic occurs when we impose an idea or technique working in one cultural context to another
• e.g. attachment research is in the use of babie’s response to reunion with the caregiver in strange situation
• Britain and USA lack of affection on reunion may indicate avoidant attachment but in Germany this behaviour would more likely be classed as independence
• therefore this part of the strange situation may not have the same meanings in different cultural contexts and comparing them across culture is meaningless