Cultural variations

• Cross cultural variations

  Child-rearing practices vary considerably from place to place:

  • Environment
  • Traditions
  • Beliefs about children.
• Factors that may affect attachment

  Factors that may affect attachment:

  • Role of the mother
  • Individualistic versus collectivist cultures
  • Temperament hypothesis
  • Maternal depression
• Useful definitions

  CULTURE

   = the beliefs and customs that a group of people shares, such as child-rearing practices.

  CULTURAL VARIATIONS

  = the differences in norms and values that exist between people in different groups.
• Cross cultural research

  Some studies show that attachment is universal.

  Ainsworth et al (1967) – Uganda Study

  Observed universals in attachment behaviour i.e mother as a secure base for exploration, mother of securely attached children show greater sensitivity…
• Grossman & Grossman (1991)

  Aim: To see if the Strange Situation can be used to 

  explore attachment types in German infants and to explore the relationship between maternal sensitivity and attachment type

  Method: Used 49 German families using the Strange Situation and measure attachment type and controlled and naturalistic observation.
• Grossman & Grossman (1991)

  Findings: Most infants were insecurely attached 

  (anxious avoidant) rather than securely attached. If the mothers were sensitive to their child’s needs, the child was more likely to have a secure attachment. 

  Over 10 years, 80% of children kept the same attachment type. Secure children enjoyed close friendships later in childhood, anxious avoidant children reported having no or few friends.
• Grossman & Grossman (1991)

  Conclusion: The different attachment types 

  compared to Ainsworth’s findings may be due to different child-rearing practices.

  German children are typically taught to be independent so may be more used to being left by their parents and this led to them being classified as being insecurely attached.
• Takahashi (1990)

  Aim: to compare american and japanese children in the 

  strange situation

  Participants:

  • 60 middle-class japanese infants, aged 1 year.
  • Boys and girls.
  • Their mothers.
  • All raised at home.

  Procedure:

  They were observed in the Strange Situation
• Takahashi (1990)

  Findings: 

  • 68% were securely attached
  • 0% avoidant – insecure
  • 32% resistant – insecure
• Takahashi (1990)

  Conclusions

  1. There are cross-cultural variations in the way infants respond to separation and being left alone.

  How to explain this?

  1. Japanese infants

  experience much less separation (sleep with parents until 2, bathe with parents..) 

  2. The Strange situation was more than mildly stressful for japanese infants. The behaviours observed were reactions to extreme stress (which was not the original aim of the Strange situation)
• Takahashi (1990)

  Conclusions

  B. A second cross-cultural variation – the total lack of avoidant behaviour in this sample.

  How can you explain this?

  Japanese children are taught that such behaviour is impolite and they would be actively discouraged from such behaviour.

  The Strange situation does not have the same meaning for the Japanese as it does for the American and is not therefore a valid form of assessment for that culture.
• KEY STUDY: Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)

  Aims:

  To investigate the extent of cultural variations in attachment.

  They wanted to find out whether cross-cultural differences really exist and also whether there were any intra-cultural differences.
• KEY STUDY: Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)

  Procedure:

  • Meta analysis of 32 studies
  • Conducted in 8 countries, (15 studies in the USA): Great Britain, Sweden, Japan, Netherlands, USA, Israel, China, Germany.
  • 1900 children studied overall
  • Looked at the types of attachment across a range of countries (cross-cultural differences)
  • Also looked at difference within the same countries to get understanding of variations within cultures (intra-cultural differences)
• KEY STUDY: Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988)

  Findings and conclusions:

  Secure attachment was the most common type of attachment in all countries. Ranged from 50% in China to 75% in Britain

  Individualist cultures: insecure – resistant attachment were similar to Ainsworth’s original sample (all under 14%)

  • Not true for collectivist cultures (Japan, China and Israel) where rates were above 25% (and where insecure-avoidant attachment were reduced).

  = This suggests that there were cultural differences in the distribution of insecure attachment