Cultural Variation in Attachment

• culture

  a set of norms, traditions, beliefs shared by a large group of people
• individualistic cultures

  typically Western cultures, emphasise independence, individuality and autonomy at the expense of group coals, there is a strong sense of competition in these cultures
• collective cultures

  typically Easter, emphasise group membership interdependence and cooperation
• cultural variations

  differences in norms and values that exist between epople in different groups
• Van Izjendoorn (1998) - procdure

  • meta-analysis of findings of 32 studies of attachment behaviours
  • examined over 2000 strange situation classifications in 8 different countries
  • wanted to look at whether there were inter-cultural differences and intra-culture differences
• Van Izjendoorn - findings

  • differences between countries were small
  • secure attachment was the norm
  • insecure avoidant was the next most common in every country except Isreal and Japan (collectivist at the time)
  • found variation was 1.5 times greater within cultures that between cultures
  • insecure resistant was the least common
• cultural similarities

  • other studies support this study
  • in an African tribe, who lived in extended families, infants were looked after an even breastfed by different women but slept with their own mother at night
  • despite differences in childbearing activities, they still showes one primary attachment
• cultural differences

  • Grossman and Grossman (1991) found German infants were insecurely rather than securely attached
  • in German culture, interpersonal distance is kept between parents and children, so don't engage in proximity seeking behaviour in the strange situation
  • Takahshi (1990) studied 60 middle class Japanese infants and found similar rates of secure attachment, but there was no evidence of insecure avoidant and high rates of insecure resistant
  • infants were particularly stressed in being left alone and in 90% of cases the study was stopped
• evaluation

  • reliable
  • population validity, ecological validity
  • doesn't take into account the difference between cultures within countries
  • individualistic cultures vs collectivist culture