Van Ijzendoorn’s Research Into Cultural Variation Of Attachment Flashcards
Method of Ijzendoorn’s research
-conducted study to look at proportion of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachments across range of countries
-meta-analysis(data from severa, studies to determine overall trends)- 32 dif studies that used strange situation to investigate attachment
-covered 8 different countries, 2000 infants
Results of research
-average findings consistent with Ainsworth’s og research- secure most common
-intra-cultural variation 15x greater than cross-cultural variations
-Japan and Isreal highest insecure-resistant
-China lowest secure, fall into others equally
-Germany highest insecure-avoidant
Expand on strength that used huge sample
-2000 infants, representative so can generalise, reduces impact of anomalous results which increases internal and population validity
Expand on weakness that comparisons only made between countries
-each country has multiple cultures eg rural and urban, explains why found higher differences within country than between
-sample not necessarily representative of whole country=cannot generalise to all subcultures within country
Expand on limitation that research should not be applied to all cultures
-imposed etic(brought own ethnocentric bias to investigation), assumes one’s cultures values are norm but in reality method of assessment is biased in favour of researcher’s culture
-strange situation should not be used to study attachment in other cultures as western measuring tool meaning not fit to measure attachment in other countries
Expand on limitation that research is not assessing attachment but temperament
-criticisms of strange situation as method of assessing attachment amplified in Van Ijzendoorn’s research as involves many replications of the study
-if not measuring attachment but temperament=fundamentally questions findings, may know very little about attachment and cultural variations
