Cultural Variation

• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg aimed to measure the proportion of Type ABC attachments across a range of cultures and if there was variation within a country
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - Method

  Meta-analysis of findings from 32 Strange Situation studies. 8 countries, 1990 children. Wanted to find intra-cultural differences, differences in attachment types within the same culture.
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - Findings

  Secure - most common in every country but with some variation. 75% in Britain (highest) 50% in China (lowest)

  Insecure Avoidant - Highest in Germany. Lowest in Japan and Israel. Maybe due to German upbringing focusing on independence.

  Insecure Resistant - Highest in Japan. Lowest in Britain

  Variation within each country was 1.5x greater than between countries e.g. One japanese sample was more similar to two of the US samples than another japanese sample
• Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg - Conc

  • Proportion of different attachment changes with culture but secure attachment is the most common in all
  • Variation in attachment type varies more within cultures than between
• Takahashi studied 60 m/c Japanese babies and mums and found similar rates of secure as suggested by Ainsworth. Found no evidence of insecure avoidant. High rates of Resistant 32%.
• Takahashi - Conc

  • Like in the USA - secure was most common
  • Proportion of insecure attachment changes with cultural child rearing practices
  • Mothers in japan rarely separate from their children which explains the significant proportion of resistant