Lesson 5 Cross Cultural Variations In Attachment

Question 1

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) procedure

Answer 1

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a meta-analysis of 32 studies into attachment to see if attachment occurs in the same way across all cultures.

All of the studies they included had used the strange situation to measure attachment. These studies looked at the relationships between mothers and their babies, all of whom were under 24 months of age. The studies were conducted in eight countries, some individualistic cultures (USA, UK, and Germany) and some collectivist cultures (Japan, China, and Israel)

Question 2

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) main findings

Answer 2

• secure attachment was the most common attachment style in all of the eight countries studied.
• the second most common attachment style was insecure-avoidant, except in Israel and Japan where avoidant was rare but resistant was common.
• the lowest percentage of secure attachments was in China.
• the highest percentage of secure attachments was in Great Britain.
• the highest percentage of insecure-avoidant attachments was in West Germany.
• overall variations within cultures were 1.5 times greater than the variation between cultures.

Question 3

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) similarities and differences findings

Answer 3

The similarities between cultures suggest that caregiver and infant interactions have universal characteristics and so may be partly instinctive. However, the variations between cultures show that the cultural differences in child rearing practices also play an important role in attachment styles. The variations within cultures indicate that sub-cultural differences, such as social class, play an important role in an infant’s attachment style. These factors are possibly more important than culture

Question 4

Advantages of Cultural Variation in Attachment

Answer 4

+ This study is a meta-analysis, which includes a very large sample. This increases the validity of the findings.

Question 5

Disadvantages of Cultural Variation in Attachment

Answer 5

• The strange situation methodology was developed in the United States and it may not be valid in other cultures. For instance, Ainsworth assumed that a willingness to explore means a child is securely attached but this may not be the case in other cultures. This means the methodology is culturally biased.
• The infants from Israel in this study lived on a Kibbutz (closed community) and did not come into contact with strangers. This could be the reason why these children showed severe distress when confronted with strangers and so were classed as insecure-resistant.
• This study was not actually comparing cultures but countries. For instance, they compared the USA with Japan. Both of these countries have many different sub-cultures and that have different child rearing practices. One study of attachment in Tokyo found similar attachment style distributions to the USA, whereas studies in more rural areas of Japan found many more insecure-resistant infants.
• All of the studies used in this meta-analysis looked at infants’ attachments to their mothers. Children might be insecurely attached to their mothers but securely attached to their fathers. The strange situation is therefore not measuring a child’s attachment style but their attachment to one individual. Main and Weston (1981) found that children behave differently depending on which parent they are with.