Cultural variations in attachment

• Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg: cultural variations

  • conducted meta-analysis to study cultural variations in attachment
  • meta-analysis included 8 countries
  • all studies in meta-analysis used the Strange Situation
  • observed a total of almost 2000 mother-infant pairs
• Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg Findings:

  • secure attachment was the most common attachment type across all cultures
  • secure was lowest in China, highest in UK
  • Insecure avoidant was highest in West Germany, rare in Japan
  • Insecure Resistant was highest in Japan and Israel, lowest in UK and Sweden
• Strength: the meta analysis included studies that had large sample sizes. Overall, they studied almost 2,000 infant-mother pairs. This mean that the large sample sizes increase the validity and reduce the impact of anomalous results caused by poor methodology or unusual participants.
• Limitation: there was more variation within cultures than between cultures. Therefore it provides the argument that they studied countries, not cultures. For example, later research showed that attachment types in urban Tokyo were similar to those found in studies of the USA, whereas in rural Japan there was an over-representation of insecure-resistant children. This means that generalisations from one study to the whole country was not possible.
• Limitation: furthermore, some studies did not represent the whole culture. Sample sizes from some countries were very small. This resulted in reduced validity and it limited whether universal conclusions could be drawn.
• Strength: The Strange Situation is the only test of infant attachment that is used in different countries. It has allowed for comparisons across different cultures. This suggests that The Strange Situation is a valid and reliable assessment tool and that it is a valid observation for assessing types of attachment.