KEY STUDY: VAN IJZENDOORN & KROONENBERG CULTURAL VARIATIONS

Question 1

Studies of Cultural Variations Key Study : van lizendoorn

Answer 1

• Conducted a meta - analysis of 32 studies and compared rates of attachment types in 8 countries that had used ainsworth’s strange attachment, the results of over 1990 infants were included

Question 2

Studies of Cultural Variations van lizendoor Findings

Answer 2

• secure attachment most common type of attachment, in all cultures examined, proportion varied from 75% britain and 50% china
• collectivist cultures such as japan and israel showed higher levels of insecure-resistant attachment (25%) in comparison to other cultures
• germany (individualistic) higher levels of insecure-avoidant attachment
• variations between results of the studies within the same country were 150% greater than those between countries

Question 3

Studies of Cultural Variations Other studies

Answer 3

Simonella et al : Italian attachment rates have changed may be due to changing practices , e.g. working mothers

Jim et al : Korean attachment rates similar to Japan - similar child - rearing styles

Question 4

what is a strength of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg - research support for secure attachment being universal

Answer 4

• tronick et al studied the efe tribe in zaire, africa where infants are looked after and even breastfed by different women, infants tend to sleep with their own mothers at night, infants showed a preference for a primary attachment figure at 6 months.

Question 5

what is a limitation of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg - countries have cultural differences within them

Answer 5

• within gb there is a lot of different sub cultures, but their meta-analysis only included one study for gb,
• in the us where 18 studies were analysed,
• For example, Within a country there are many different child rearing practices highlighting that there are multiple cultures within a country.
• Furthermore, Ijzendoorn and Sagi found that distributions of attachment type in Tokyo (an urban setting) were similar to the western studies, whereas a more rural sample had an overrepresentation of insecure resistant individuals.
• Therefore the theory lacks internal validity

Question 6

what is a limitation of van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg - biased sample

Answer 6

• 27 out of 32 within the meta-analysis were carried out in individualistic cultures,
• so the results are biased towards individualistic cultural norms and values so cannot be generalised to collectivist cultures lowering population validity

Question 7

what is a limitation van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg - cultural bias

Answer 7

• strange situation developed in america and results may be culturally biased, more suitable for use in only american culture, imposed etic, ( refers to a situation in research or communication where an external perspective, based on the norms and beliefs of one culture, is incorrectly imposed on another culture,) results lack validty when used with samples from different cultures
• in traditional japanese culture, dependence rather than independence would be a sign of secure attachment but they may appear to be insecurely attached in america