| What is culture? | Rules, customs, traditions, values, morals and beliefs that bind members of a society together. We learn these rules through socialisation (eg. upbringing/child rearing) |
| What does collectivist mean? | Any culture that places more value on 'collective' rather than the individual, on interdependence compared to independence |
| What is subculture? | A group within a culture/society that shares many of the dominant cultural characteristics of that society but also has distinctive characterisitcs of their own |
| What is individualistic? | A culture which values the importance on independence and the individual |
| What was Van Ijzendoorn's study finding? | Discover whether there were differences in attachment types across cultures. Conducted a meta-analysis of studies which had used the strange situation as part of their procedure. |
| What was the studies involved with Ijzendoorn's meta-anaylsis? | 2,000 strange situations classification of infants and their mother from 32 different studies and 8 countries (5 collectivist and 3 individualistic) |
| What country had the lowest secure attachment? | China - 50% |
| What country has highest secure attachment? | Great Britain - 75% |
| What do the secure attachment results suggest? | The dominat attachment across all cultures studied - collectivst and individualistic - is secure |
| Top three countries with avoidant attachment type? | West Germany - 35%
Netherlands - 26%
China - 25% |
| Lowest two countries with avoidant attachment types? | Isreal - 7%
Japan - 5% |
| What can be concluded with avoidant attachment types? | Significant differences in insecure attachment with insecure-avoidant attachment being more common in individualistic cultures |
| Top three countries with highest insecure-resistant attachment types? | Isreal - 29%
Japan - 27%
China - 25%
(Compared to GB with 3%) |
| What can be concluded with resistant attachment type? | Significant differences in resistant attachment can be seen more common collectivist cultures |
| What can said to be the global pattern of cultures? | It appears to be similar to the US. Secure attachment is the 'norm' - the most common form of attachment. Supports the idea that secure attachment is 'best' for healthy social and emotional development |
| What did they find with variation? | Variation within cultures was 1.5 times greater than the variation between cultures |
| How did Ijzenndoorn suggest the cross cultural similarities? | Said that it can be explained by the effects of mass media (tv, books) which spreds ideas about parenting so that all children across the world are exposed to similar experiences |
| What did Fox's study find? | Isreal:
Infants spent most time being raised in communal children's home by Metaplot.
The children were equally attached to both caregivers, showed greater attachment to mother with reunion behaviour. Links to Bowlby's idea of attachment hierarchy. |
| What did Grossman and Grossman's study find? | German infants tened to be classed as insecurely rather than securely attached as they don't engage in proximity seeking behaviours in the Strange situation. Encouragement of independence |
| What was the procedure of Takahashi's study? | 60 middle class Japanese infants aged 1- years old, both boys and gilrs were observed in the Strange situation |
| What did Takahashi find? | 68% were classified as securely attached.
32% were insecure resistant
No infants were classified as insecure-avoidant
In the 'infnat alone' scenario, it had to be stopped due to 90% of the participants became to distressed |
| What can be concluded from Takahashi's study? | -There is cross cultural variations in the way infants respond to separation and being left alone
-Not a valid assessement for Japanese culture, the difference may be due to the fact that Japanese infants rarely got left alone - slept with parents until over 2 years
-No avoidant could be due to the Japanese children being taught that the behaviour is impolite and were discouraged from acting that way |
| A strength of cross-culture variation? | -Often conducted by indigenous reserachers from the same cultural background as the participants
-Van Ijezendoor included German research by Grossman and Japaneses reserach by Takahashi
-Potential problems like a reseracher misunderstadning the language used by participants or difficulty communicating was avoided
-Internal validity of data collected is enhanced, less chance of reserach bias or negative cultural stereotypes impacting results |
| What is weakness of cross-culture variation? | -Comparing attachment of countries not of cultures in Ijzendoorn's research
-Compared GB with Isereal in their meta-analysis, within each country there may be different sub-cultures, which are unique in child rearing
-Researchers notes that variance within cultures was greater than between countries (1.5 times)
-It stands to reason that they did not collect data on attachment in subcultures whithin the countires they investigated rather than the nation as a whole |
| A weakness of cross-culture variation? | -Ijzendoorns used strange situation methodology which is can cause the results to be culturally biased
-Ainsworth's strange situation is more suitale for western cultures as it reflects individualistic norms and values. (Autonomy and independence)
-Using this method beyond the sample it was intended for, like collectivst culture, is reffered to as imposed etic
-Problematic becuase attachment behaviours mean differen things for different cultures and so the results may not be valid when used with samples of mother and babies from non-Westrn cultures |
| A weakness of cross-culture variation? | -Alternative explanation for universal attachment types which are seen cross-culturally
-Bowlby's monotropic theory of attachment would explain the patterns of secure attachment being the most dominant cross-culturally as an innate mechanism to aid survival of infants
-However, Van Ijzendoorn counters the agument, suggesting that some of the similarites could be due to mass exposure to similar media forums, TV
-Effects of portrayls in global media about how parents and babies 'should' behave could override traditional cultural differences in child rearing practices. |
