Cultural variations in attachment

Cultural variations in attachment

1. Monotropy as culturally specific

   • A longitudinal study of caregiving
     • Schaffer and Emerson (1964) studied 60 infants at monthly intervals for a year and again at 18 months of age. Mothers were asked how much their infants protested in common separation situations, such as being put to bed or in their pram, and about their reactions to strangers
       • they found the following:
         • Infants showed clear signs of attachment by 6-8 months, and stranger anxiety appeared around a month later
         • for 65% of infants, the first main attachment figure was the mother, but, by 18 months, only 13% of infants showed just one attachment and 31% had 5 attachments, usually to members of the family
         • of the fathers, 27% were the joint main attachment
     • the results suggest that attachment is not necessarily to the main caregiver as it can happen with people who are not much involved in day care
   • Kibbutzim: collectivist, Israeli, agricultural communities
     • On a Kibbutz, labour is shared and a mother usually returns to work a few weeks after giving birth leaving the infant in the care of a metapelet in the 'Children's House'
     • In the Strange Situation, infants appeared equally distressed when the metapelet or mother left the room (Fox 1977), but were more easily consoled on the mother's return
     • Good day care and regular family contact appeared to lead to multiple attachments with the strongest bond being to the parent
       • This suggests an innate tendency to monotropy, but it could also happen because the parent remains constant while metapelets share time between infants and may change jobs

2. cross-cultural research

   • a study using the Strange Situation in Japan
     • Takahashi (1990) tested 60 Japanese infants aged 1 year old using the Strange Situation Process and found that, in accord with USA studies, 68% were securely attached
       • However, compared to American infants, Japanese infants were much more distressed when left alone, so the procedure was stopped in many cases for ethical reasons
     • Japanese infants tend to sleep with their mothers until they are 2 years old and are carried a great deal so, for them, separation is unusual and extremely distressing.
       • Takahashi thought that many more secure attachments would have been identified had this not been the case
     • Conclusions drawn from this study were that the Strange Situation may not be a valid measure of attachment security for Japanese infants for 2 main reasons
       • They experience the Strange Situation as being much more upsetting than do American infants
       • Japanese infants are taught that avoidance is rude and this may be why only 5% were avoidant-insecure compared to 22% in Ainsworth and Bell's study (1970)
     • this study does not necessarily apply to all Japanese infants since the ones in this study were all being reared at home in middle-class families. The results might have shown greater similarity with American studies if the Japanese study had used infants whose lifestyle involved more frequent early separation
   • A meta-analytic study of the Strange Situation research
     • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) pooled findings from 32 Strange Situation studies in 8 countries in a meta-analysis
     • Secure attachment was the type most often observed in all cultures
       • This could be due to culturally universal parenting practising, such as parental sensitivity, but, because of the global availability of mass media, we cannot tell if this is due to universal human nature or is environmentally determind
     • The most striking differences are in the types of insecure attachment (i.e. avoidant and resistant).
       • For example, few German and UK infants are resistant-insecure and few Japanese and Israeli infants are avoidant-insecure
         • This may be because parental practises do differ between cultures, but it could also be because the Strange Situation has demand characteristics that are not the same for people with different cultural norms
           • This may affect what they believe is appropriate to do in front of others