Lesson 9 - Cultural variations in attachments

Question 1

Individualistic cultures

Answer 1

Cultures that value independence and the importance of the individual, mostly western

Question 2

Collectivist cultures

Answer 2

Emphasises the importance of groups and collectives, usually non western

Question 3

Ainsworth (1967)

Answer 3

• Uganda
• Participants were 26 mothers and infants who lived in 6 villages around Kampala.
• He saw that some mothers were more ‘sensitive’ to their baby and they were more securely attached. This led to them having increased competence and independence

Question 4

Simonella (2014)

Answer 4

• Italy
• Used 76 12-month olds
• Used the Strange Situation and found that 50% were securely attached, 36% were insecure avoidant and 14% insecure resistant
• This could be due to an increase of women in work and an increase of professional childcare. These findings show that these cultural changes make a huge difference

Question 5

Jin et al (2012)

Answer 5

• Korea
• Used 87 children
• Used the Strange Situation and found similar proportions of secure and insecure attachments
• However, there was a larger proportion of resistant children than avoidant. There was only one avoidant child
• This is shared in Japan. Both countries have similar child rearing styles, therefore this could be an explanation for the results.

Question 6

Tronick et al (1992)

Answer 6

• Zaire (Africa)
• Studied an African tribe who live in large family groups
• This meant that infants were breastfed by several different women
• However, by six months, they still showed one primary attachment.
• This also supports monotropy

Question 7

Takahashi (1990)

Answer 7

• Japan
• 60 middle class Japanese infants
• Used the Strange Situation
• Found that 32% were insecure resistant, and no evidence of insecure avoidant attachments
• 90% of infants experienced inconsolable distress on separation
• Child rearing usually involves very little separation which could explain this extreme distress

Question 8

Grossman and Grossman (1991)

Answer 8

• Germany
• Infants tended to be more insecurely attached rather than securely as it is common for there to be some interpersonal distance between parent and child

Question 9

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)

Answer 9

• Conducted a meta analysis of 32 studies of attachment and this amounted to over 2000 strange situations from 8 different countries
• In all countries, secure attachment was the most common
• Insecure avoidant attachments were most common in individualistic countries like West Germany
• Israel and Japan (collectivist) saw the least amount of insecure avoidant children and more insecure resistant children
• Cultural differences do have a large significance despite all cultures showing mostly secure attachments

Question 10

Strengths of cultural variations

Answer 10

• Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg used a large sample size of 2000+ strange situations, which eliminates the impact of anomalies, strange results, methodological issues etc. This increases the internal validity of the study and the results obtained about cultural differences

Question 11

Weaknesses of cultural variations

Answer 11

• Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg compared countries, not cultures. There are several different cultures within a country with different child rearing practices. It may have been better to compare the different areas and cultures within one country
• Using a Western theory of attachments on other cultures is imposed Etic, meaning that the way we see the practices of other cultures objectively may not be how the people of that culture see it. In Germany, the behaviour of unenthusiastic on reunion may be seen as a sign of independence rather than insecure avoidant attachment in this theory. Rothbaum et al (2000) argued that this theory is not built for other cultures, and looked at 3 major differences in Japanese and American culture:

The sensitivity hypothesis - In America, ‘sensitivity’ is more associated with making sure a child grows up independent, while in Japan and other collectivist cultures, this is more about promoting dependence

The continuity hypothesis - The idea that you become more competent emotionally as an adult based on your attachments as a child (IWM) has different meanings across cultures. In individualistic cultures, this means being able to share your feelings, however in Japan for example, you are not expected to do this

The secure base hypothesis - In the west, attachments are independence oriented, by using a secure base to nurture the will to explore, however in Japan for example, child rearing is much more dependence oriented

Therefore it is hard to generalise this western-biased theory to other cultures