Cultural Variations in Attatchment

Question 1

Who researched into cultural variations in attachment?

Answer 1

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg (1998)
Takahashi (1990)

Question 2

What does culture mean?

Answer 2

‘Culture’ refers to the norms and values that exist within any group of people. Cultural variations are the differences in norms and values that exist between people in different groups

Question 3

What is a collectivist culture?

Answer 3

A collectivist culture is one which emphasises family and work goals above individual needs and desires, there is a high degree of interdependence between people

Question 4

What is an individualistic culture?

Answer 4

Emphasises personal independence and achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition

Question 5

What is cultural variation?

Answer 5

The way members of a society or culture vary in terms of their social practices (child - rearing), which can impact infant development and behaviour

Question 6

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 6

Judging other cultures based on the values and standards of your own culture

Question 7

What was the aim of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?

Answer 7

To look at the proportions of attachment types across a range of countries to assess cultural variations

Question 8

What was the procedure of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?

Answer 8

Located 32 studies of attachment where strange situation had been used to investigate proportion of babies with different attachment types. They were conducted across 8 countries, with 15 US studies. The study yielded results from 1990 children, and the results from these studies were meta analysed

Question 9

What were the results of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?

Answer 9

There was a wide variation of proportions of attachment types in different studies, in all countries secure attachments were most common, Varying from 75% in UK to 50% in China

Individualistic cultures had rates of insecure resistant attachments similar to ainsworth’s sample, but this wasn’t true for collectivist cultures. Variations between results of studies within the same country were actually 150% greater than those between countries

Question 10

What was the conclusion of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg’s study?

Answer 10

There is a global pattern of secure attachments suggesting that it must be biological and innate

Question 11

What was Takahishi (1990)’s aim?

Answer 11

To assess the appropriateness of the strange situation with Japanese children

Question 12

What was Takahishi (1990)’s procedure?

Answer 12

60 middle class Japanese infants aged 1 took part in the strange situation

Question 13

What were Takahishi (1990)’s results?

Answer 13

Secure attachment - 68%
Insecure resistant -32%
Insecure avoidant - 0%

Japanese children were extremely disturbed when left alone and the experiment had to be stopped the majority behind

Question 14

Strengths of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg’s study

Answer 14

Standardised methodology - 32 studies used in the meta analysis made use of the same method to measure attachment. Highly controlled observation with the same episodes and clear behaviour categories. Large sample sizes improves generalisability

Question 15

Weaknesses of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg’s study

Answer 15

Does not work in all cultures as it is an American method that has ethical implications

May suggest other cultures are raising children incorrectly due to higher levels of insecure attachment - may not be the case

Only considers western ideas - in Japan they prefer dependence from their children

Too much difference within cultures, rather than between cultures

Question 16

Simonelli et al (2014)

Answer 16

Assessed 76 babies to see if proportion of babies in Italy with different attachment types matched those in previous studies. He found a lower rate of secure attachment and a higher rate of insecure avoidant. This was suggested to be because of more mothers working longer and using childcare