Cultural Variations

• Cultural variations


  the differences in norms and values that exist between different cultural groups.
• What are some examples of cultural variations in attachment?

  the “kangaroo care” method used in some African countries, where infants are carried on their mother’s back for most of the day, and the “amae” concept in Japan, which refers to the desire to be in physical contact with a caregiver.
• Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg(1988)


  -conducted a study to see the proportion of secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachment types in different countries.

  -studied attachment types in countries to see differences within cultures.

  -investigated cross-cultural variation in attachment using meta analysis on 32 studies using ainsworth's strange situation
• findings of Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg(1988)

  • In all countries secure attachment was the most common classification
  • Insecure-avoidant was most common in Germany and least common in Japan.
  • Variations between results within the same country were 150% greater than those between countries
• although over 2000 children were examined, some samples such as the Chinese sample were very small comprising of only 36 children. It may, therefore, be unwise to generalise the results across all Chinese children as findings may not be representative of the whole population.
• Grossman et al (1991) 


  found German children tended to be classified as insecurely attached which went against the majority of other cultures which were classed as secure. Child-rearing practices were believed to have influenced this as German culture promotes interpersonal space between children and parents. 
• Tronick et al (1992)


  studied the Efe, an African tribe who lived Zaire and within extended family groups.

  
  

  Infants were looked after and breastfed by various different women but would on most occasions sleep with their mother at night.

  
  

  At 6 months of age, despite such differences in child-rearing practices they still showed a preference towards one primary attachment figure suggesting it may be an innate biological process as Bowlby suggested.
• Takahashi (1990) 


  used Ainsworth’s strange situation to study the attachment behaviour of 60 infants from middle-class Japanese families.

  
  

  His findings were similar to what Ainsworth had found in the US sample with similar rates of secure attachment supporting Bowlby’s attachment theory.

  
  

  One major difference, however, was that the Japanese infants showed high rates of insecure-resistant attachment (32%) and no evidence of insecure-avoidant attachment. 
• Simonella et al. (2014)


  conducted a study in Italy to see whether the proportions of babies of different attachment types still matches those found in previous studies. ​

  • 76 12-month olds were assessed using the Strange Situation.​
  • They found 50% were secure and 36% were insecure-avoidant. ​

  This is a lower rate of secure attachment than has been found in many studies. The researchers suggest this is because increasing numbers of mothers of very young children work long hours and use professional childcare.