Van iJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988)

Specification

• Van iJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) Cross-cultural patterns of attachment: A Meta-Analysis of the Strange Situation.

Summary

Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg’s (1988) meta-analysis summarized findings from 8 countries, which included the UK, US, Sweden, Japan, China, Holland, Germany & Israel. The meta- analysis examined 32 studies and consulted nearly 2000 Strange Situation classifications in total. The meta-analysis yielded a number of findings and conclusions:

Aim(s)

The aim was to carry out cross-cultural analysis looking at differences between cultures and within cultures of the attachment types in different countries.

They also wanted to gather data from the same countries to focus on issues with individual’s study samples, which may have biased the results.

Procedure

From their provisional analysis they had noted that attachment types varied across the world based on studies that had already been completed. From this they suggested:

• In studies using the strange situation procedures the samples were generally small which means that generalising attachment types across that culture/country was reduced.

• Also some of the countries studies had got large samples therefore within them they could have different cultural variation in attachment that there not included in the first provision studies – in order to ensure reliability of the findings these wold need to be tested within these countries again.

A meta-analysis was used which involved a search for suitable studies using a large database from which they could analyse the strange situation procedures in terms of attachment types.

The following criteria was used to select the most appropriate studies for the meta-analysis:

• Only studies of infants-mother attachment using the strange situation procedure and giving ABC classifications were included.

• Special samples such as Down’s Syndrome children were not included or studies where ether samples size was less than N=35.

• Studies with overlapping samples were not included – some samples were used in more than one study.

• Studies had to involve children under the age of two.

Based on these the final sample included 32 samples from 8 countries involving 1,990 strange situations. Ainsworth’s attachment types were focused on, and for this research they used the three main types. They planned to use Ainsworth (1978) as a baseline sample distribution.

Results

In most studies attachment was most frequently found to be Type B, which is a secure attachment.

• Average findings were consistent with Ainsworth’s original research - Secure 65% - Avoidant 21% - Resistant 14%

• Intra-cultural variation was nearly 15 times greater than the cross-cultural variations. Van Ijzendoorn speculated that this was linked to differences in socio-economic factors and levels of stress that varied between samples used within each country.

• 6/8 countries produced findings that were proportionally consistent with Ainsworth & Bell (70).

• Japan & Israel revealed a higher incidence of resistant than avoidant children.

• Chinese findings revealed the lowest rate of secure attachments (50%) with the remaining children falling into the other categories equally.

Variations between and within cultures

• Between countries, between individual samples and between continents there were significant differences. For example, Germany, Japan and the USA.

• Variations within countries are nearly 1.5 times more than between the countries.

• In German and the USA the differences within the country are particularly large, whereas in the Netherlands and Japan they are much smaller.

• Within a country differences were quite high and as it is usually the same researcher completing the research within a country it is unlikely that the differences in distribution of attachment types was due to the different study procedures used.

• When all the US studies were put together, the overall distribution of attachment did not match Ainsworth’s suggestions, therefore there was no accepted baseline comparison after the meta-analysis was carried out.

Conclusions

The overall conclusion was that attachment Type B was modal in all countries. Overall there are more Type A attachments in Western European countries and more Type C attachments in Israel and Japan, with the US being in the middle regarding Type A and Type C attachment distribution.

Possibly the media are a reason for the overall distribution of attachment type being similar globally (such as Type B being most dominant) as the media often promotes child rearing from the perspective western world and this may have spread and affected child rearing practices.

Evaluation

Strengths

Comparison is aided by the standardised methodology. The use of the strange situation as a procedure means that a comparison can be made across cultures, and the reliability is therefore high

Weaknesses

The study was not globally representative -Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg recognised that data from less Western-oriented cultures were required to establish a more global perspective attachment classifications, pointing out that Africa, South America, and Eastern European socialist countries were not represented.

Overall findings are misleading - As a disproportionately high number of the studies reviewed were conducted in the USA (18/32), the overall findings would have been distorted by these. This means that the apparent consistency between cultures might not genuinely reflect how much attachment types vary between cultures.

Applying Strange Situation procedures and behavioural categories is ethnocentric – Cross-cultural research using the Strange Situation judges and categorises infant behaviour according to behavioural categories that were developed following observations of middle-class American infants. This means that when researchers interpret non-American infant behaviour, it is being judged against an American standard. Eg. an infant exploring the playroom by themselves would be classed as avoidant based on American standards but is valued as reflecting independence in Germany

Past Paper Questions

• Evaluate the study by Van iJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988). (8) June 2018

• Assess whether the classic study by Van iJzendoorn and Kroonenberg (1988) is scientific. (8) June 2019