individual and cross cultural differences

• ainsworth and bell aim ?

  to measure individual differences in attachment
• ainsworth and bell procedure ?

  controlled observation of seven three minute episodes with 12-18 month old infants, they recorded separation anxiety, willingness to explore, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour, caregiver and stranger left and returned one after the other to measure this
• ainsworth and bell findings ?

  three types of attachment present in american infants , avoidant (22%), securely attached (66%), resistant/ambivalent (12%)
• ainsowrth and bell conclusion?

  there are individual differencesin attachment but most american children are securely attached, there is an association between mothers behaviour and attachment type which suggests the mothers behaviour determines it
• strength of ainsowrth and bell?

  high test-retest reliability, when tested at later date most babies remain in same category, german study found 78% of children were the same when tested at age 1 and 6 and when changes occur its due to change in family structure which proves its consistent
• critique of ainsworth and bell?

  may lack internal validity as may not be measuring attachment type, could reflect the temperament hypothesis and the idea some babies have natural characteristics like being happy sad or anxious or vulnerable to stress, may also reflect previous separation experiences with mother and not attachment type, also demand characteristics of the mother.
• critique of ainswoth and bell ?

  lacks population validity, cannot generalise outside of middle class, ethnocentric as all american, cant generalise to other cultures
• answorth and bell critique?


  imposed etic, different cultures have different norms and the procedure does not translate across cultures, implies other cultures are abnormal so it lacks cross cultural validity
• critique of ainsworth and bell ?

  ethical issues, no protection from psychological harm of babies being stressed or mothers seeing their babies distressed
• ijzendoorn and kroonberg aim ?

  to investigate cross cultural differences in attachment
• ijzendoorn and kroonberg procedure ?

  meta-analysis, looked for strange situation replications, excluded special groups and those involving less than 35 infants, 32 studies across 8 countries
• ijzendoorn and kroonberg findings ?

  secure is the most common attachment type across all cultures, avoidant was the next most common apart from Japan and Israe,. therefore there is little variation between attachment across cultures, variation within a culture is 1.5x greater than variation across culture
• ijzendoorn and kroonberg conclusion?

  global pattern seems similar to US of secure being the most common attachment type, these finings support the idea that secure attachment is needed for healthy development
• critique of ijzendoorn and kroonberg?

  internal validity, meta-analysis only included strange situation to measure attachment type, there are concerns the SS lacks internal validity overall so the meta-analysis may be making conclusions about things other than attachment , could reflect tempermant hypothesis, previous separation experiences and demand characteristics of the mother
• critique of ijzendoorn and kroonberg?

  methodological problems with meta-analysis, half of the studies were conducted in america which may skew the results and make it extremely reflective of americas attachment types and norms