Cultural variations in attachment

• Cultural similarities

  Tronick et Al supports the strange situation types of attachment. They researched the African Efe tribe who live in extended family groups where the infant is looked after and breastfed by several people, but sleep with their mother. Despite the cultural differences in child-rearing practices, the infant still showed one primary attachment to their mother at the age of 6 months
• Grossman and Grossman


  Studies the strange situation in Germany, they found infants tended to be classified as insecurely attached, rather than securely, according to the strange situation.

  This may be due to cultural differences in child-rearing techniques as the German culture encourages keeping interpersonal distances between infants & caregivers
• Japan study

  Takahashi used the strange situation to study 60 middle class Japanese infants and caregivers, he found similar rates of secure attachment to those Ainsworth's study (66%) but no evidence of insecure avoidant attachments but high levels of insecure resistant attachments (32%). Many infants got extremely distressed when separated and had to end the study.

  A close bond to their mothers is seen as a strong attachment in Japan, but is seen as an insecure attachment according to the strange situation
• AO3

  Similarities may be due to global culture

  IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg concluded in their meta-analysis that part of the reason attachment was universally similar is due to the effect of mass media (e.g TV, books) spreading the ideas globally about parenting and so children across the world are exposed to similar influences.

  Cultural similarities may not be due to innate biological influences but because culture is becoming more globalised.
• AO3

  Countries rather than cultures

  They were not comparing different cultures, but countries.

  There are many different subcultures within a country which have different childcare practices.

  For example, a study of attachment in urban Japan had similar attachment styles to Western studies. But, in rural Japan, there was a high prevalence of insecure individuals.

  There is lots of variations of cultures within countries which must be considered
• AO3

  Cross-cultural research


  Is it valid to use the strange situation in other cultures?

  The strange situation proposes willingness to explore is a secure attachment but in Japan, dependence on a caregiver is seen as a secure attachment.

  Therefore, infants may seem insecurely attached according to Western criteria but are securely attached in their standards.

  The strange situation may lack validity in other cultures
• AO3

  Large samples used


  IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg's studies used almost 2000 babies as they combined studies from different cultures, leading to a large sample.

  This reduces the risk of anomalies skewing the results due to the large sample size and the research is more representative and so is generalisable.

  This increases the validity of the study