Cultural Variations in Attachment (Psychology) Essay Example
Discuss cultural variations in attachments.
A culture is a group of people who have their own norms, values and customs.
The Kroonenberg study showed that in a study of 8 countries the culture attachments patterns seem to be quite similar. The most common attachment type was a secure attachment. In western countries the dominant attachment type was avoidant and in non-western countries the dominant type was resistant. These results were reached from data from 2000 strange situation studies in 32 different countries.
There are many cross-cultural similarities such as in Ainsworth’s Uganda study she observed various universals in attachment behaviour. This study showed that infants in Uganda were similar to infants in the UK and USA because they used their mothers as a secure base for exploration, and mothers of securely attached infants showed more sensitivity towards their infants than those who were insecurely attached.
Tronick studied an African tribe who live in extended family groups. The infants are looked after and even breastfed by different women but normally sleep with their mother at night times. Despite the different carers the infants still showed one primary attachment to the mother.
Fox studies infants raised on Israeli kibbutzim that spent their time being cared for in a communal. Attachment was tested in the strange situation with either the mother or the metapelet. The infants were equally attached to both of the caregivers except in the reunion behaviour where they showed greater attachment to their mothers. This suggests that the mothers were still the primary caregiver despite the shared care.
There are also many cross-cultural differences. Grossmann and Grossmann found that German infants were more commonly insecurely rather than securely attached. This is due to the fact that in German culture they keep some interpersonal distance between the parents and children so that infants do not engage in proximity-seeking behaviour. This caused
A culture is a group of people who have their own norms, values and customs.
The Kroonenberg study showed that in a study of 8 countries the culture attachments patterns seem to be quite similar. The most common attachment type was a secure attachment. In western countries the dominant attachment type was avoidant and in non-western countries the dominant type was resistant. These results were reached from data from 2000 strange situation studies in 32 different countries.
There are many cross-cultural similarities such as in Ainsworth’s Uganda study she observed various universals in attachment behaviour. This study showed that infants in Uganda were similar to infants in the UK and USA because they used their mothers as a secure base for exploration, and mothers of securely attached infants showed more sensitivity towards their infants than those who were insecurely attached.
Tronick studied an African tribe who live in extended family groups. The infants are looked after and even breastfed by different women but normally sleep with their mother at night times. Despite the different carers the infants still showed one primary attachment to the mother.
Fox studies infants raised on Israeli kibbutzim that spent their time being cared for in a communal. Attachment was tested in the strange situation with either the mother or the metapelet. The infants were equally attached to both of the caregivers except in the reunion behaviour where they showed greater attachment to their mothers. This suggests that the mothers were still the primary caregiver despite the shared care.
There are also many cross-cultural differences. Grossmann and Grossmann found that German infants were more commonly insecurely rather than securely attached. This is due to the fact that in German culture they keep some interpersonal distance between the parents and children so that infants do not engage in proximity-seeking behaviour. This caused