Cultural variations in attachment

Cultural variations in attachment

1. Bowlby believed that attachments evolved and had a survival value. If true, attachments styles should be similar across different cultures.

2. Dogon study

   • 42 mother-infant pairs used as participants, the strange situation method was used to assess different attachment styles.
     • Compared to those from 4 North-American samples. Total: 306 mother-infant pairs tested
     • In Dogon sample, many children their grandmother as principal carer during the day. Attachment classifications were un-effected as mothers remained closely involved with children through regular breastfeeding and co-sleeping during the night.
   • Conclusions
     • Children raised through natural child-rearing principles have significantly higher rates of secure attachments
     • Dogon child-rearing practices with practices associated with aviodant styles in western cultures.
   • Evaluation
     • The distribution of attachment styles among the Dogon, with a high proportion of secure attachments and no avoidant attachments -REMARKABLE- mortality rate up to 45% of infants before age 5.
     • The strange situation procedure contains elements unfamiliar to Dogon infants, like being left with strangers, therefore this creates the risks that infants are wrongly classifed as insecurely attached.

3. Other research studies

   • Van Ijzendoorn and Koonenberg (1988) reviewed 32 strange situation studies from 8 countries, involving over 2000 children. Founda similar patttern to Ainsworth- secure attachment most common. Insecure- avoidant was not common in Japan and Israel, but insecure-resistant was.
     • Differences within cultures

4. Evalution

   • Cross-cultural studies and suffer from an imposed-etic, wqhere reserchers analyse findings in a biased manner in terms of their own cultural beliefs, wrongly imposing cultural-specific beliefs into other cultures
   • Strange situations may not be applicable in all cultures, suggests that attachment theory is culture-bound and applicable only to western cultures
   • Higher frequency of insecure-resistant attachment type in Japan may result from stress during the Strange Situation due to infants' unfamiliarity at being left with strangers. Japenese children are rarely seperated from their mothers, so seperation episodes are upsetting for these children.