Outline and Evaluate Research Into Cultural Variations of Attachment

562 Words3 Pages
According to Bowlby’s theory, attachment has evolved to provide the biological function of protection for infants thus if our attachment is innate there should be no discrepancies across cultures. Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) conducted a meta-analysis through which they found the differences between different countries and cultures were present regarding attachment behaviour. The variations between cultures/countries were found to be small as secure attachment was the most common classification in every country. Insecure-avoidant followed in almost every country except Israel and Japan. The variation within cultures was seen as 1.5 times greater than the variation between cultures. This can therefore confirm through the mass similarities into types of attachment which are most common that our attachment is in an innate and biological proccess. Ainsworth (1967) observed various universals in attachment behaviours in Uganda. She showed that mothers who were more sensitive to the needs of their children tended to have securely attached infants. She compared these results to her study in Baltimore (1971) where she found the same behaviour exhibited by mothers in the urban setting of Baltimore. Both studies observed 26 mothers and were longitudinal using methods of naturalistic observation which provides high levels of ecological validity to support the similarities found between the bond established between a mother and her infant in two different countries. Grossman and Grossman (1991) found that German infants tended to be classified as insecurely rather than securely attached which can be owed to the different childrearing practises as the German culture involves keeping interpersonal distance. The same ‘Strange Situation’ technique was used by Takahashi (1990) as Grossman and Grossman to study 60 Japanese infants and found similar security rates to

More about Outline and Evaluate Research Into Cultural Variations of Attachment

Open Document