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Cultural Variations in Attachment - Coggle Diagram
Cultural Variations in Attachment
If bowlbys belief that attachments evolved and have a survival value is true then patterns of attachment should be similar across different cultures regardless of child rearing styles . . Secure attachments should dominate all cultures with equal amounts of insecure avoidant and insecure resistant types
Belsky (1999) even proposes an evolutionary reason for the existence of similar attachment types in different cultures : he argues that insecure attachment types are associated with weak adult relationships and early sexual activity , which could be useful in some situations eg after a famine or plague when many people have died as people would need to reproduce and being sexually active at a young age and not getting too emotionally involved with people who may die young .
Child rearing styles vary across cultures : in some cultures one person does most of the caring while in other many people are involved .
There are also cross cultural differences as to how different attachment types are regarded eg in the UK we view insecure avoidant attachments as negative however in Germany this is seen as a sign of independence .
Cross Cultural patterns of attachment : meta analysis of the strange situation - Marinus van Ijzendoorn and Pieter Kroonenberg (1988)
Aims
To asses whether within separate samples there was a pattern in the distribution of different attachment types
To asses the extent of inter and intra cultural differences in attachment types in seperate samples
To assess similarities and differences in the amount of Type A , B and C attachment types in seperate samples
Procedure
A meta analysis of 32 studies from 8 countries that used the strange situation procedure to assess mother-child attachments and which classified attachments as either Type A , B or C
All studies comprised at least 35 mother-infant pairs with infants below 2 years of age
Findings
Overall attachment was Type A = 21% , Type B = 67% , Type C = 12%
In samples from all cultures , except one from germany , the modal attachment type was Type B
The highest proportion of Type A attachment was found in german samples
Intra cultural differences were often greater than inter cultural differences . Eg in one USA sample there was 94% type A attachments while in another USA sample there was only 47% of type A attachments
Type A attachments were found more in western cultures , while type C attachments were found more in israel , china and japan
Conclusions
The data suggests there is a difference in the pattern of cross cultural attachment types across cultures
Intra cultural differences in attachment types are often greater than inter cultural differences
Overall patterns of attachment types were similar to what ainsworth found
An important cross cultural similarity is the predominance of Type B attachment in all cultures
Evaluation
As intra cultural differences were often found in different samples from the same researcher , it suggests such differences were not down to methodological differences
Data drawn from cultures not represented in the meta analysis , for example african , south american samples would be required before universal conclusions could be drawn
Some intra cultural differences may be due to socio-economic differences eg some USA samples are from middle class pairings while other USA samples were from poorer pairings
Cross cultural studies can suffer from imposed etic where researchers analyse findings in a biased manner in terms of their own cultural beliefs , wrongly imposing cultural specific beliefs to other cultures . Eg ainsworth , an american , assumed that seperation anxiety was an indication of secure attachment but it may represent something else to other countries
Infant-mother attachment among the Dogon people of Mali - Mary McMahon-true , Lelia Pisani , Fadimata Oumar (2001)
Aims
To asses whether infant attachment types are different in a culture that raises infants using natural parenting methods
To assess whether attachment security was related to the quality of mother-infant communications
To assess whether mothers of secure infants respond more sensitively to their infants than mothers of insecure attachments
Procedure
42 mother and infant pairs from rural Dogon villages were used as participants with infants ranging from 10 months to 12.5 months at first assessment
The strange situation testing method was used and the results were compared to those from 4 north american samples , with a total of 306 mother-infant pairs tested
Findings
Type A - Dogon = 0% . North American = 23%
Type B - Dogon = 67% . North American = 55%
Type C - Dogon = 8% . North American = 8%
Type D - Dogon = 25% , North American = 15%
Many Dogon children had their grandmother as their primary caregiver during the day however this did not affect attachment classification because mothers remained closely involved with children through regular breastfeeding and co sleeping during the night
Postive Correlations were found between maternal sensitivity and infant security ratings and the quality of mother-infant communications and infant security ratings
Conclusions
Children raised by natural child rearing practices have higher levels of secure attachment and no insecure avoidant attachments . This is explained by the incompatibility of Dogon child rearing practices with western cultural child rearing practices associated with insecure avoidant styles . In Dogon culture there is no maternal rejection of attachment bids , intrusion or lack of physical contact
Naturally parented children have greater attachment security and an absence of insecure avoidant attachment ,when compared to children of western cultures
Evaluation
The high proportion of secure attachments and no insecure avoidant attachments found among the Dogon people is remarkable considering the mortality rate is around 45% of infants before the age of 5 and the high rates of social and economic stressors , eg poverty and HIV
The findings are backed up by 2 similar studies : Tomlinson (2005) using a south african sample and Zevalkink (1999) using an Indonesian sample , both found high levels of secure attachment and low levels of avoidant attachment
Comparable studies are needs of infants naturally parented in western studies . rates of secure attachments should be even higher here , because factors such as poverty , social stress and child mortality are less . However , on problem with such studies is that maternally sensitive mothers are more likely to choose natural parenting procedures which could bias findings
The strange situation procedure contains elements unfamiliar to Dogon infants , like being left with strangers , therefore increasing risk that infants are wrongly classified as insecurely attached
