Cultural variations in attachment

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) - aim

Their aim was to investigate the proportions of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachment across cultures

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - procedure

- they located 32 studies of attachment where the strange situation has been used. These were conducted in 8 countries

- overall the studies yielded results for 1,990 infants and a Meta-Analysis was used

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - findings

- in all countries, secure attachment was the most common classification (50-75%), followed by avoidant and lastly resistant

- in individualist cultures, rates of insecure-resistant attachment were similar to Ainsworth’s original sample (all under 14%)

- in collectivist cultures (like china, Japan and Israel) rates of insecure-resistant were above 25%

- variations within cultures was 150% grater than between countries

Alessandra Simonelli (2014)

- Simonelli conducted a study in Italy where she assessed 76 12 month olds using the strange situation

- she found that only 50% were securely attached , which is lower than the predictions formed in previous studies

- 36% were insecure-avoidant

- she suggested that this is because more mothers are working longer hours and are using professional childcare - decreasing the likelihood that their child will be able to form a secure attachment

Mi Kyoung Jin (2012)

- Jin conducted a study to compare proportions of attachment in Korea to other studies - 87 babies were assessed

- the overall attachment proportions were similar to other countries , however more of those classified as insecure were resistant and only one baby was avoidant

- this distribution is similar to that in Japan, this suggest that similarities in child - rearing practices are influential in establishing patterns of attachment

Conclusions

Secure attachments seem to be the norm in a wide range of cultures , supporting Bowlby’s idea that attachment is innate.

However this research clearly shows that cultural practices have influence on attachment type

Strengths

• one strength is that the findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg can be considered reliable - this is due to the significantly large sample of 1,990 infants that they used. Having a large sample size increases the internal validity of the study by reducing the impact of anomalous results caused by bad methodology

• One strength of research on cultural variations if that most of the studies were conducted by indigenous psychologists - meaning that the psychologists are from the same background as the participants. For example Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg included research by a German team and Takahashi who is Japanese. This kind of research means that many of the potential problems in cross cultural research (such as misunderstandings of the language) can be avoided

Limitations

• one limitation of meta analysis is the impact of confounding variables on the results - studies conducted in different countries are not usually matched for methodology when used in meta analysis. Sample characteristics such as poverty, social class and urban make up can confound the results, as well as age. Environmental variables might also differ between studies and confound variables