Attachment: Around the world

Attachment: Around the world

1. Nature-attachment is biological, innate

   • Very similar attachment behaviours would be found around the world universality

2. Nurture-attachment is dependent on cultural expectations.

   • Large differences in attachment behaviour from culture to culture

3. Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) cultural variations in attachment styles

   • A meta-analysis was carried out on the results of 32 studies that used the strange situation to measure attachment behaviour
     • Research from 8 different countries was used, including Western cultures and non-Western cultures
       • The 32 studies yielded results for 1,990 children.
   • Secure attachment was the most common attachment style in all nations.
     • In Western cultures the dominant style of insecure attachment found was avoidant
       • In non-Western cultures the dominant style of insecure attachment was resistant
         • Variation within cultures was 1 ½ greater than between cultures
           • They found more differences in attachment styles and behaviours within and around a single country than between that country and another.
   • As secure attachment was the most common style of attachment, it suggests that there may be universal (potentially innate) characteristics in infant-caregiver interactions.
     • The variations in insecure attachment around the world suggests that here culture must play some part
       • Also the findings indicate that it is wrong to think of any given culture/country as using exactly the same child rearing practices

4. Sagi (1991) found similar findings for American infants 71% secure, 12% resistant, 17% avoidant and 49% avoidant for German infants but 0% in japan.

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