Types Of Attchment And Cultural Variations Flashcards
Who devised the strange situation and why
Marry Ainsworth devised the strange situation to observe the quality of attachment in infants to their caregiver
Procedure of strange situation
- research room was marked into a grid of 16 squares so infants movement could be recorded
- 106 middle class infants
- collected data using a two way mirror and video camera
- infants behaviour is observed
- infant behaviour was split into behavioural categories and scored for intensity using a 1-7 scale
The behaviours used to judge attachment include
- proximity and contact seeking behaviour
- exploration and secure base behaviour
- stranger anxiety
- separation anxiety
- response to reunion
Procedure has 7 episode each of which last 3 minutes
Beginning caregiver and baby enter unfamiliar playroom
1. Baby encourage to explore - test exploration and secure base
2. Stranger comes in talks to caregiver and approach’s baby - test stranger anxiety
3. Caregiver leaves baby and strange tougher - test separation and stranger anxiety
4. Caregiver returns stranger leaves - test reunion and exploration/secure base
5. Caregiver leaves baby alone - test separation anxiety
6. Stranger returns - test stranger anxiety
7. Caregiver returns and is reunited with baby - test reunion behaviour
Findings of strange situation identified 3 types of attachment - secure attachment
these babies explore happily and regulary return back to caregiver
Show moderate separation and stranger anxiety
These babies accept comfort from caregiver at reunion stage
60 - 75% of babies in Britain have a secure attachment
Findings of strange situation identified 3 types of attachment - insecure-avoidant attachment
These babies explore freely but do not seek proximity or show secure base behaviour
Show little or no reaction when caregiver leaves and little stranger anxiety
Little effort or avoid contact completely with caregiver during reunion
20 - 25% of babies have insecure- avoidant reaction
Findings of strange situation identified 3 types of attachment - insecure-resistant attachment
These babies seek greater proximity then others and so explore less
High levels of separation and stranger distress
Resisit comfort when reunites with caregiver
3% of babies have insecure resistant attachment
Strength of strange situation - predictive validity
Findings show good predictive validity
- infants assessed as secure attached have better outcome in later life
- they tend to have better metal health
Shows the types of attachment developed by ainsworth are real and shows high validity
Strength of strange situation - inter rater reliability
Agreement was found in the observation of attachment types in 94% of cases
This could be because of controlled conditions
The high inter rater reliability gives confidence that the attachment types assesses by strange situation are not subjective
Limitation of strange situation - bias
Research carried out in middle class infants in Western Europe and USA
- culture bound only applies to uk and USA
- Japanese study found high number of babies displayed insecure-resistant attachment so experiment cannot be applie to other cultures
- so study lacks generalisability an prone to culture bias
Limitation of strange situation - ecological validity
Lacks ecological validity
- infants placed in strange and artificial environment.
- episodes taken place unlike to happen in real life scenario
- so infants attachment behaviours ma not be activaed due to artificial environment so some infants may be wrongly classified deducting the validity of findings
So was interested in how cultural variations affected attach men behaviour
Van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg
Procedure of van ljzendoorn and kroonenberg cultural variations
Meta analysis conducted
Were interested in investigating inter cultural differences and intra cultural difference in attachment
Study loooked at 2000 children who had been assessed via strange situation from 8 countries
- uk,us,Sweden,Japan china,Holland,Germany,Israel
Findings of cultural variations
Wide variation in attachment types
All countries showed secure attachment as most common classification
- 75% uk to 50% china
Individualist culture insecure resistant attachment under 14%
Collectivist cultures (china,japan,Isreal) insecure resistant attachment was above 25%
Cultural variation Italian study carried out by Simone’s et al
50% securely attached
36% insecure avoidant
This is a lower rate of attachment and higher rate of insecure avoidant attachment than has been found in many studies
The researcher suggests this is because increasing numbers of mothers of very young children work long hours and use childcare
These finding show pattens of attachment styles are not static but vary in line of cultural change
Srength of cultural variations of the strange variations
Comparisons are using standardised procedure this means there is high relatability
A robust cross cultural comparison was made and a larger sample size was used the increases the reliability of the findings
Limitation of van ljzendoorm and kroonenberg cultural
They compared countries not cultures
Within each country are many different cultural variations
Found that attachment within japan varied width Tokyo having similar attachment styles to those of western countries but much more rural settings had larger numbers of insecure resistant attached infants
This suggests the findings might not be due to cultural variations
Limitation cultural variations - confounding variables
There are many confounding variables by carrying out a meta analysis across different cultures
- some countries may have preformed the strange situation with a varied methodology
- some variable may be characteristic like age, social class
This means the findings lack validity and conclusions can not be drawn
