Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg: Cultural Variations in Attachment

Aims

Procedure

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) collected Strange Situation attachment classification data from 32 samples in 8 different countries (N = 1,990).

This was a meta-analysis of existing Strange Situation studies rather than an original experiment.

The procedure was to aggregate and statistically analyze the published attachment classification frequencies from qualifying samples.

Studies were included if they:

• Used the strange situation.
• Observed only mother-infant pairs (i.e., not the father- or other carer-pairs).
• Classified infants into one of the attachment types: A (Avoidant), B (Secure), or C (Ambivalent/Resistant).

Samples smaller than 35 were excluded, as were special populations like Down syndrome or twins and children older than 2 years.

The total sample (N = 1,990) included 32 samples from 8 countries: USA (18 samples), Netherlands (4), Germany (3), Japan (2), Israel (2), Sweden (1), UK (1), and China (1, with Chinese-American infants).

Sample sizes ranged from 35 to 115 (mean = 62). Infants’ age ranged from 11 to 24 months.

Using a meta-analysis (a statistical technique), they calculated the average percentage for each country’s attachment styles (e.g., secure, avoidant, resistant).

Statistical measures: The authors computed standardized residuals for each sample’s A, B, and C frequencies to assess deviations from the global distribution.

They used Bonferroni-corrected chi-square tests to evaluate the significance of cross-cultural and intracultural differences. Correspondence analysis graphically depicted similarities and differences among the sample distributions.

Findings

It was found that secure attachment was the most common type of attachment in all cultures. The lowest percentage of secure attachments was shown in China, and the highest in Great Britain.

Results showed that individualistic countries that support independence such as Germany had high levels of anxious-avoidant, whereas countries that are more culturally close (collectivist), such as Japan, had quite high levels of ambivalent resistance.

Conclusion

The overall consistency in secure attachment types leads to the conclusion that there may be universal (innate) characteristics that underpin infant and caregiver interactions.

However, the significant variations of insecure attachments demonstrate that universality is limited. Implications include the linking of the variation in attachment to child-rearing practices and environmental factors.

The German study highlights a high percentage of avoidant behavior, typical of independent children. This is not surprising given that Grossmann et al. (1985) say that German parents seek ‘independent, non-clingy infants, who do not make demands on parents, but obey their commands.’

Israeli children were raised in a Kibbutz (communal living), so they were used to being separated from their mothers. As a result, they do not show anxiety when their mother leaves. However, they are not used to strangers, so they get distressed when left alone with them. This explains the high percentage of resistant behavior.

Longitudinal cross-cultural research is needed to track how globalizing trends in childrearing and family life may shape changes in attachment distributions over time.

Strengths

• Aggregating data from 32 samples in 8 countries for a more robust cross-cultural comparison
• Using appropriate categorical data analysis methods like standardized residuals, chi-square tests, and correspondence analysis
• Quantifying the relative degrees of intracultural and cross-cultural variation
• Graphically depicting the similarities and differences among samples
• Appropriately cautious conclusions emphasizing the need for more data from non-Western cultures

Limitations

Ethnocentric Bias

The Strange Situation test assumes that behavior has the same meaning in all cultures when, in fact, cultural perception and understanding of behavior differ greatly.

The Strange Situation was created and tested in the USA, which means that it may be culturally biased (ethnocentric), as it will reflect the norms and values of American culture.

For example, the belief that attachment is related to anxiety on separation. This may not be the case in other cultures, e.g., Japan.

Biased Samples

Many studies have biased samples that cannot be claimed to be representative of each culture, e.g., 36 infants in the Chinese study. Also, most of the studies analyzed were from Western cultures.

Lack of data from South America, Africa, and other less developed regions restricts the global generalizability of the findings.

Distributions can vary widely within a country. Caution is needed in assuming an individual sample represents a (sub)culture.

The finding that differences within cultures are as large as or larger than differences between cultures is highly significant for interpreting cross-cultural research on attachment.

Researchers can no longer assume individual samples are representative of entire cultures or that cultures are homogeneous in their attachment patterns. Differences from the U.S. “standard” are not necessarily evidence of cross-cultural invalidity of attachment theory and methods.

While there are trends for Western European countries to have more avoidant infants and for Israel and Japan to have more resistant infants, the differences within countries are at least as large as those between countries. Researchers should be cautious about treating individual samples, especially outliers, as representative of an entire culture.

Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg report that differences in attachment within a culture are far greater than those found between cultures.

Van ljzendoorn & Kroonenberg found that the intra-cultural variation was nearly one and half times that of the inter-cultural variation. In other words, there were bigger differences within cultures than between them.

In some countries, the intra-cultural variation is very large (e.g., in Germany and the USA). There is much less variation in others (such as the Netherlands and Japan).

They conclude that it is wrong to think everyone in a culture has the same practices. Within a culture, there are many sub-cultures, all with their own way of rearing children.

These may be ethnically or racially based but also may be social class specific, for example in the UK the so called ‘middle classes’ having different child-rearing techniques to the ‘working classes.’#

Demographic differences between samples (e.g., in socioeconomic status) may confound the intracultural and cross-cultural comparisons.

Overall, there was a one-and-a-half times greater variation within a culture than between cultures. For example:

• One of the German samples was as different from another German sample as it was different from an Israeli kibbutzim or from a US sample.
• One of the Japanese samples was more similar to two of the US samples than to the other Japanese sample.
• The Israeli city sample was more like the US than it was to the Israeli kibbutzim sample.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bell, S. M. (1970). Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child development, 49-67.

Grossmann, K., Grossmann, K. E., Spangler, G., Suess, G., & Unzner, L. (1985). Maternal sensitivity and newborns” orientation responses as related to quality of attachment in northern Germany. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 233-256.

Van Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Kroonenberg, P. M. (1988). Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: A meta-analysis of the strange situation. Child Development, 59, 147-156.