cultural variation

• van ijzendoorn & kroonenberg’s (1988) procedure: a meta-analysis summarised findings from 8 countries, which included great britain, us, sweden, japan, china netherlands, germany & israel
• the meta-analysis examined 32 studies and consulted approximately 2000 strange situation classifications in total
• the cross-cultural variation between countries was quite  small
• 6 out of the 8 countries produced findings that were proportionally very similar to the pattern found by ainsworth (1970) i.e. secure, ins-avoidant then ins-resistant
• the secure attachment type was the most common classification in every country
• however, the proportion of secure attachments varied from 75% in great britain to only 50% in china
• the insecure avoidant attachment type was the next most common in every country except israel and japan
• avoidant attachments were observed most commonly in germany and least commonly in japan
• the insecure resistant attachment type was overall the least common type, but japan and israel were the only two countries revealed to have a higher incidence of resistant than avoidant children
• however, an interesting finding was that variations between results of studies within the same country was actually 1.5 times greater than those between countries
• for example, in the usa one study found only 46% securely attached compared to another study finding 90% securely attached
• it was concluded that the modest cross-cultural differences reflect the effects of mass media, which portrays similar notions of parenting