cultural variations

• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg research

  Procedure

  32 studies from 8 different countries including 1990 babies were meta analysed. The studies had repeated the strange situation. 15 of the studies had come from the usa.

  Findings

  There was a 150% difference within a country than between countries. Secure attachment was the most common attachment 75% Britain and 50% china. In individualistic cultures, insecure resistant similar to the original study was under 14% whereas in collectivist cultures it was above 25%.
• Italian study

  Simonelli 2014 conducted a study to see if her findings matched previous studies of the proportions of babies attachment types. It assessed 76 babies 12 months old using the strange situation. 50% secure 36% insecure-avoidant . Lower rate of secure and higher rate of insecure-avoidant  suggesting that there is an increasing amount of numbers that are leaving the child and going to work and putting the children in childcare. Attachment types are not static but vary within cultural change.
• Korean study

  Mi Kyoung Jin 2012 conducted a study to compare the proportions of attachment types in Korea to other studies, using the strange situation. It assessed 87 babies. The proportion of secure and insecure babies was similar to other countries. More babies that were insecurely attached were found in Japan similar to Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg research. Japan and Korea have similar child-rearing styles so this can explain the similarity.
• Conclusions

  Secure attachment is the most common in many cultures, supporting Bowlby's theory that attachment is innate and universal , and secure is the universal norm. Attachment type is influenced by cultural practices.
• Limitation trying to impose a test made for one cultural context to another. Cross cultural psychology has ideas of emic and etic. Imposed etic happens when we assume a technique works in one cultural context will work in another. Example is a baby's response to reunion with CG in strange situation. Britain and US lack affection baby avoidant but in Germany it means that the baby is independent of insecurity. This part of strange situation may not work in Germany. Means behaviours measured in strange situation may have different meanings in each country.
• Limitation confounding variables inc meta-analysis. Studies in different countries are not matched for methodology. Sample characteristics such as poverty can confound results the same as age of pps. An example is the size of the room and the availability of interesting toys, babies able to explore more in smaller less visible proximity rooms with more interesting toys which can make it more likely for the baby to be classed as avoidant.  Means attachment patterns in not matched cross-cultural variations research may tell us nothing about attachment patterns within countries.
• Strength researchers form the same cultural background as pps. IJzendoorn and Kroonberg included research by a German team Grossmann 1981 and Takahasi 1986 who is Japanese, meaning that cross-cultural problems within the research can be avoided such as misunderstanding of the language used by the pps or difficulty communicating instructions. Difficulties can include bias. Means researchers and pps have a good chance of communicating well, increasing validity.
• But not true for all research. Morelli and Tronick 1991 from America and studying child-rearing patterns in Efe of Zaire. The data may have been affected in gathering data from a different culture. This means the data may have been affected by bias and difficulty in cross-cultural communication.