Cultural variations in attachment

Who’s study looked at cultural variation

Van ijzendoorn

Can ijzendoorn procedure

• 32 replicas of the strange situation study

• Conducted in 8 countries

• Data was meta analysed

How many of the 32 studIes were done in the US

18

Which country had the highest % for secure attachment

Uk - 75%

Which country had the highest avoidant attachment

Germany - 35%

Which country had the highest resistant attachment

Israel - 29%

What might be the reason for Hugh resistant attachment in Israel

They traditionally live in a community called a kibbutz and so for th children they would get very stressed when their caregiver leaves but for them this is a good thing

What are the strengths of van ijzendoorns experiment

• all studies were completed by local researchers

• Enhanced understanding of attachment behaviour

• Hugh population validity

How is the studies being completed by local researchers a strength

It meant that the researchers understood the cu,ture and the language and so could get valid results for each country

How has this study enhanced our understanding of attachment behaviour

We can now include alternative behaviour for the babies to ensure their attachment style is mistaken for a different one because the researchers understood e.g. ainsworth is from the USA and won’t know much about eastern cultures

How is population validity a strength of this study

In this study nearly 2000 mothers and their babies were studied so we can generalise the findings to a much larger population

What are the limitations of this study

• extraneous variables

• Counter argument for pop validity

• temporal validity

How are extraneous variables a limitation of this study

E.g. social class or poverty

• if lots of people in a country are in poverty and can’t afford a house with more than one bedroom and the child and parent have to share then when the parent leaves the strange situation it’s going to affect the baby more and may be mistaken for resistant attachment

What is a counter argument for the population validity

18 of the 32 studies were completed in the USA and only 1 was done in china which means we couldn’t generalise that 1 study to the entirety of china

What is temporal validity

This study was completed in 1988 and so is outdated in today’s society so may not be applicable now