cultural variations in attachment

• what was Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg’s 1988 meta analysis?

  • examined 32 studies in 8 countries where the strange situation had been used to investigate attachment types
  • the study had been done on around 2000 children
• what were the findings of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg?

  • in all countries secure attachment was the most common classification but it varied (75% in britain and 50% in china)
  • insecure resistant was the least common
  • avoidant attachment was more common in West Germany but rare in Japan
  • Variation in cultures was 1.5x greater than the variation between cultures ( in USA one study got 46% secure and another got 90%)
• what was the conclusion of Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonberg ?

  • the global pattern across cultures appears to be similar to that found in the US
  • supports idea that secure attachment is best for healthy social and emotional development
• cultural differences - Takshashi Japan 1990

  • found similar rates of secure attachment to US
  • Japanese infants showed no evidence of insecure avoidant and high rates of insecure resistant
  • infants were distressed on being left alone -for 90% of the infants the study had to be stopped
  • explained by the difference in childcare practice - most japanese babies are rarely away from their mother
• cultural similarities - Tronick et al 1992 - Africa

  • studied an African tribe. infants look after and breastfed by different women but slept with their mother
  • infants still showed one primary attachment