cultural variations

• van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg conducted a meteanalysis of 32 studies of the strange situation
• van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg found that china had the lowest % of securely attached children and the uk had the highest
• van ijzendoorn and kroonenberg found that Germany had the highest % of insecure avoidant children and japan+Israel had the lowest
• a limitation of van ijzendoorn and kroonenbergs study into cultural variations of attachment is that its a meta analysis of 32 studies that used the strange situation including around 2000 infants , meaning there was a very large sample size
• cultural differences may be due to different parenting styles or child rearing practices rather than culture itself
• strength of van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study - indigenous researchers - limits language barriers and one nations stereotype of another. - increased validity
• other cultural research into attachment -

  simonelle et al - studied itallian infants attachment types. Assessed 76 babies using the strange situation - 50% securely attached, 36% insecure avoidant. This is a lower percentage of securely attached children than found in other studies - They suggested that this was because of the increasing numbers of mothers of very young children working longer hours and using professional childcare.
• conclusions that can be drawn from research into cultural variations of attachment -

  • secure attachment seems to be the norm in most cultures, which supports Bowlby's idea that attachment is innate and universal.
  • but, research does show that cultural practices and differences in child rearing do also effect attachment
• one major limitation of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's study is that it is a meta-analysis meaning there is a high risk that confounding variables impacted findings. Studies from different countries are not usually matched up for methodology when they are compared for meta-analysis - e.g - social class, rural or urban