Cultural variation

• Who researched cultural variation in attachment?

  Van ijzendoorn in 1988
• What was Van IJzendoorn's study?

  A meta analysis of 2000 infants in 32 studies from 8 countries who participated in the strange situation experiment.
• What did van ijzendoorn find?

  Secure attahcment is the most common world wide.

  
  

  Insecure avoidant is the second most common in western individuaistic societies.

  
  

  Insecure resistant is the second mst common in non western, collectivist cultures.

  
  

  There are more differences within cultures than between them.
• What other studies support van Ijzendoorn and kronenbergs study?

  Simonella et al showed that the proportion of securely attached italian children is 50% which was lower than expected.

  
  

  Jin et al found that from 87 infants aged 6 months, those who were insecurely attached are majorly insecure reistant. This is similar to results in japan that suggest similar child rearing practices produce similarly attahced children.
• What are the strength of research into cultural variation?

  Large sample size increases internal validity as it reduces the impact of anomalous results.

  
  

  This method is quick, cheap, and easily replicated increasing the external valditity.
• What are the weaknesses of research into cultural variation in attachment?

  The strange situation was designed by american researchers stemming from a british theory, meaning when used to evaluate other cultures it can be seen as an imposed etic. E.g. the lack of pleasure during reunion is a sign of insecure attachment in the strange situation yet in some cultures like germany it would be seen as a sign of independance.

  
  

  The samples of ijendoorn and kroonbergs study claimed to study cultural variation but in reality comparisons were made between countries not cultures. Futhermore many countries are missing and those in the US make up the majority for example china takes up around 20% of the population yet only 25 chinese infants were studied. This implies that the results cannot be generalised world wide as they are bias in favour of western cultures.