Cultural Variations in attachment

Cultural Variations in attachment

1. Evaluation

   • Similarities may not be innately determined
     • VI & K suggest that at least some cultural differences can be explained by the effects of mass media (eg, tv/books)
       • perhaps due to increasingly global culture as children all over the world are influenced by similar things
   • Nation rather than culture
     • VI & K compared countries rather than cultures such as Japan with the US
       • there are many different subcultures
         • Van Ijzendoorn & Sagi, 2001
           • TOKYO: urban setting-> similar distributions of attachment types to western studies Rural setting-> more insecure-resistant
             • caution should be taken in generalising results to be representative of whole culture/subculture
   • Stange Situation methodology unreliable?
     • Main & Solomon, 1986, found type D, insecure-disorganised
       • meta-analysis is limited in research
     • Culture bias
       • American study- shows individualist culture not collectivist culture

2. Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg, 1988

   • Procedure
     • meta-analysis of the findings from 32 studies of attachment
       • examined over 2000 strange situation classifications in 8 different countries
     • interested in whether inter-cultural differences (between) exist and whether there are intra-cultural differences (within)
   • Findings
     • differences were small between cultures
     • secure attachments were most common in every country
     • Insecure-avoidant attachment was the next most common in every country except Israel and Japan (I-A= 7%, 5%. I-R= 29%, 27%)
     • Variation WITHIN cultures was 1.5 greater then variations between cultures
     • supports view that attachment is innate

3. Tronick et al., 1992

   • Studies African tribe, the Efe, from Zaire who live in extended family groups
     • infants breastfed by different women by slept their own mother at night
       • After 6 months, still showed one primary attachment

4. Grossmann & Grossmann, 1991

   • Found that German infants are more likely to be insecurely rather than securely attached

5. Takahashi, 1990

   • studied 60 middle-class Japanese infants and their mothers
     • 32% higher insecure-resistant as infants rarely separate from heir parents