cultural variations

cultural variations

1. Ijzendoorn and Kronenburg 1988

   • looked a proportion of secure and insecure attachments in different countries
     • looked at differences with same countries as the idea od variations within a culture

2. procedure

   • analysed 32 studies of the strange situation being used to investigate attachment types which were conducted in 8 countries 15 in the US for 1990 children
   • results from the meta-analysis were combined and weighted for sample size

3. findings

   • secure was the most common- 75% in Britain and 50% in china
   • insecure resistant = least common 3% in Britain and 30% in israel
   • insecure-avoidant was common in Germany and the least common in Japan

4. other studies

   • Jin et al 2012- Korea
     • 87 children
       • proportions of secure were similar to other countries but there were more resistant rather than avoidant which is similar to japan
         • Japan and Korea have similar child-rearing styles which may explain the similarity
   • Italy - Simonella et al 2014 assessed 76 12-month-old babies
     • 50% = secure 36%= avoidant
     • mothers work long hours and so have childcare which suggests cultural changes make a difference to the pattern of attachment type

5. conclusion

   • secure is the norm in many cultures which support Bowlby's theory of attachment being innate and universal
     • however, research shows cultural practices have an influence on the attachment type

6. evaluations

   • method of assessment is biased
     • the strange situation was designed by an Ameerican and based on a british theory and so there is question over whetehr Anglo-American theory can be applied to otehr cultures. An imposed etic is wherea theory or technique designed for one culture is applied to anoteher. for example in Germany there was a large percentage of insecure attachment which to them is seen as independence ratehr than insecurity (Grossman and Grossman 1990)
   • large sample size
     • in the meta-analysis, there were a total of 2000 babies and PAF. this increases the internal validity/ reduces the chances of anomalous results caused by the methodology and unusual participants. and because it is a representative sample it will be able to be generalised to the wider population
   • samples are unrepresentative of cultures
     • the comaprisons are between countries not cultures. ana analysis carried out by Ijzendoorn and Sagi 2001 found the distriubution of atatchmenet in Toyo are simialr to western studies. a rural sample would then have an over representation of insecure resistant. this means comparisons between studies may still have little meaning particilarly in cultural characetristics and caregiving styles
   • an alternative explanation for cultural similarity
     • Bowly suggests that attachments are innate and universal. However Ijzendoor and Kronenburg proposed that small cross-cultural differences reflect the effects of mass media such as books/tv "that advocates similar notions of parenting are disseminated across countries"