cultural variations to strange situation

• What is an individualistic culture?

  Those that stress the needs of the individual over the needs of the group as a whole.
• What is an collectivist culture?

  Emphasise family and work group goals above individual needs or desires.
• Which cultures studied by Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg were individualistic?

  USA, Sweden, Netherlands, Great Britain, West Germany
• Which cultures studied by Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg were collectivist?

  China, Japan
• Which cultures studied by Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg were a mixture of individualistic and collectivist?

  Israel
• What was the methodology of Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg?

  A meta-analysis of other Strange Situation studies
• What inclusion criteria did Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg use?

  All of the selected studies had observed only mother-infant pairs and classified infants into the 3 attachment types
• What exclusion criteria did Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg use?

  They excluded any studies that looked at children with special needs (such as Down's syndrome), any study with less than 25 mother-baby pairs, and any study using children older than 2 years.
• Who had the most securely attached babies?

  Great Britain and Sweden
• Who had the least securely attached babies?

  China and Germany
• Where was insecure-resistant most common?

  Israel, Japan and China
• Where was insecure-resistant least common?

  Great Britain and Sweden
• Where was insecure-avoidant most common?

  Germany
• Where was insecure-avoidant least common?

  Japan
• What kinds of cultures is secure most common in?

  Individualistic
• What kinds of cultures is insecure-avoidant most common in?

  Collectivist
• What kinds of cultures is insecure-resistant least common in?

  Mixed cultures
• Why is insecure-avoidant common in Germany?

  Grossmann et al (1985) say that German parents seek 'independent, non-clingy infants, who do not make demands on parents, but obey their commands.
• Why is insecure-resistant common in Israel?

  Israeli children were reared in a Kibbutz (communal living) so were used to being separated from their mother, however, not used to strangers
• One strength of research into cultural variations in attachment is that most of the studies were conducted by indigenous psychologists. What does indigenous psychologists mean?

  Indigenous psychologists are those from the same cultural background as the participants.
• Why is it good to include indigenous psychologists?

  Many of the potential problems in cross-cultural research can be avoided, such as misunderstandings of language or having difficulty communicating instructions. Difficulties can also include bias because of one nation's stereotypes of another.
• A criticism of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's research is that they may have been comparing countries and not, in fact, cultures. What may be a problem with any of the samples within Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg's study in relation to culture?

  Within each country there are many different subcultures, each of which may have different childcare practices.
• How has culture been found to affect attachment within a country?

  One study of attachment in Tokyo (an urban setting) found similar distributions of attachment types to the Western studies, whereas a more rural sample found an over-representation of insecure-resistant individuals (Van IJzendoorn and Sagi, 2001)
• What did Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg find that may suggest they were studying countries and not cultures?

  Found more variation within cultures than between cultures, presumably because the data was collected on different subcultures within each country
• What is imposed etic?

  Imposed etic occurs when we impose an idea or technique that works in one cultural context to another.
• How is using the Strange Situation in other countries an example of imposed etic?

  In Britain and the USA, lack of affection on reunion may indeed indicate an avoidant attachment. But in Germany such behaviour would be more likely interpreted as independence rather than insecurity