Cultural variation

Cultural variation

1. Similarities

   • Ainsworth's Uganda Study
     • Like USA & UK infants use parents as secure base for exploration
     • Mothers of securely attached infant showed greater sensitivity
   • Tronick et al.
     • African tribe, the Efe
     • Lived in extended families, child rearing duties shared, including breastfeeding however children slept with their mothers
       • Children at 6 months still showed signs of one primary attachment
   • Fox
     • Studied infants raised in Israeli kibbutzim
       • Communal children's home by metaplot (nurses, one nurse = metaplet)
     • Used strange situation
       • Infants appeared equally attached to both caregivers apart from in reunion behaviour

2. Differences

   • Grossman and Grossman
     • German infants tend to be classified insecurely
       • German cultre - impersonal distance between infants and parents
   • Takahashi
     • 60 middle class Japanese infants
       • Similar results to Ainsworth et al. in the US - except no insecure-avoidant and high insecure resistant (32%)
         • 90% of tests stopped when infants left alone due to the extreme distress it caused

3. Conclusions

   • Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg
     • Meta analysis 32 studies over 8 countires
       • Not much variation
         • Secure attachment always most common
           • Secure attachment is the 'norm' and indicated most healthy social and environmental development
             • Cross cultural differences are uncommon suggesting that attachment is biological and innate
         • Insecure-avoidant second most common apart from in Japan and Israel

4. Evaluation

   • Rothbaum et al.
     • Attachment theory not relevant to other cultures as it is rooted to American culture
       • The sensitive hypothesis
         • Reflects Western ideas of autonomy whereas Japan sensitivity is about showing dependence rather than indepenence
       • The continuity hypothesis
         • US: securely attached infants go onto to be socially and emotionally competent Japan: competence is the inhibition of emotional expression & being group orientated rather than self orientated
       • Psychologists should produce an indigenous set of theories for each culture
   • Posada and Jacobs
     • There is a lot of evidence that supports the idea the universality of attachment
       • The issue is not whether sensitivity leads to independence - but whether sensitivity links to secure attachment
   • Van IJzendoorn and Sagi
     • Tokyo has similar distributions of attachment to western society however a more rural sample showed an over representation of insecure-resistant
   • Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg
     • Mass media has made the cross-cultural similarities
   • Imposed etic
     • Technique designed for one culture but used on another