examples of ethnocentrism and cultural bias

• AINSWORTH'S's strange situation test is used to measure secure, insecure-resistant and insecure avoidant attachments
• the strange situation test was originally carried out on an American sample, there was an assumption that secure was the 'best' with 70% of infants classified as secure, 15% avoidant, 15% resistant
• VAN IJZENDOORN and KROONENBERG did a cross cultural meta-analysis of research using the strange situation

  • they found secure attachment type was most common across cultures, suggesting universality of the secure attachment type
• AINSWORTH's strange situation test is criticised for being an ethnocentric method, based in Western views of what secure attachment looks like. this assumption may not be true for all cultures
• the cross-cultural use of the strange situation is described as using an imposed etic where a technique designed in one culture is imposed on another

  • an example of cultural bias in psych research