van izjendoorn cultural variations in attachment

• The procedure for the meta-analysis involved collecting data from 32 studies across 8 countries. Together, these studies observed a total of 1990 mother-child pairs in the strange situation procedure.
• The procedure for the meta-analysis involved collecting data from 32 studies across 8 countries. Together, these studies observed a total of 1990 mother-child pairs in the strange situation procedure.
• These results suggest that culture does play a part in attachment styles. For example, studies in Western cultures (e.g. Germany, Britain, USA) tended to observe significantly higher insecure-avoidant attachment styles. In contrast, Japan, China, and Israel had significantly higher insecure-resistant attachment styles.
• However, in many cases, intra-cultural differences (differences between studies conducted within the same country) were often greater than inter-cultural differences (differences between studies conducted in two different countries
• For example, while one USA study observed 94% of infants had insecure-avoidant attachments, a different USA study observed that just 47% of infants had insecure-avoidant attachments.
• Attachments in infancy appear to be highly important for psychological development. The syllabus looks at the influence of infant attachment on adult psychology, as well as the effects of breaking early attachments as observed in the Romanian orphan studies and according to Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis.
• meta analysis

  32 studies from 8 countries
• criticisms in terms of sample sizing

  many of the countries represented only had one study included, such a small sample is not representative of the country's population; for example, the sample may have over-represented groups such as urban infants
• positives in terms of sizing

  this meta analysis included a very large sample size, a strength of this is any poorly conducted study or unusual results only have a small effect on overall results, increasing confidence in the validity of the findings
• many studies across many different cultures have used the strange situation procedure to measure attachment. Van Izendoorn + kroonberg (1988), conducted a meta analysis with the aim of determining whether attachment styles are universal across cultures or whether cultural conditions affect attachment styles
• Takahashi- replicated the strange situation with 60 middle class Japanese infants and mothers using the standardised procedure and behavioural categories. Takahashi's observation revealed distinct cultural differences in how the infants responded to the 8 stages of the procedure. conclusion was that there was a higher proportion of insecure resistant children of 32% compared to the Ainsworth sample
• average findings of van izjendoorn research was consistent with those of ainsworth