Social Attachment-Strange Situation & Cultural Variations

Front 1

Who developed the strange situation and what was the aim?

Back 1

Devised by Mary Ainsworth

Aim is to observe key attachment behaviours in infants as means of assessing the quality of attachments to a caregiver.

Front 2

Give the procedure and findings of the strange situation

Back 2

A controled observation with a 2 way mirror to observe behaviour

quality of attachment judged by: Proximity seeking, Exploration base behaviour,stranger anxiety, reunion behaviour.

child exposed to: 7 episodes that all last three minutes.

Child is encouraged to explore

Stranger enters and tries to interact

Caregiver leaves infant and stranger alone

Caregiver returns and stranger leaves

Child is left alone

Stranger returns

Caregiver returns and is reunited with child.

Findings:

Ainsworth found 3 types of behaviour secure attachment (60% of time) Avoidant attachment (20-25%) and resistant attachment (3%)

Front 3

Name and describe 3 different types of attachment.

Back 3

Secure-explores and seeks proximity, moderate stranger and seperation anxiety. requires and accepts comfort after reunion- parents internal working model "loving", childs own feel worthy of the love.

Avoidant- Explores but doesn't seek proximity, little or no seperation or stranger anxiety, doesn't seek comfort upon reunion- parents, internal working model "should deal with it on own"

Resistant: explores less and seek proximity more. complete stranger and seperation anxiety but resists comfort to "punish" parents are inconsistant in behaviour e.g. cooking in play time.

Front 4

Outline 2 strengths to the strange situation

Back 4

Predictive validity- attachment types develop later devlopment e.g. secure= better ay school and personal relationships

resistant is assicociated with the worst outcomes e.g. bullying and adult mental health issues. (Kokkinos 2007) This is ecidence for the validity as the concepts can explain later outcomes.

Good inter-rater reliabilty- different researchers watching the same children came to the same results (94% agreement)

Strange situation occured under controlled conditions and behavioural catagories easy to observe so confident attachment types that are observed don't depend on who is watching them.

Front 5

Outline 2 weaknesses to strange situation.

Back 5

Some tests may be culture bound- test may have different results outside western society Takashi (1990) explains that japanese mothers are rarely seperated from their children and so continue to show high levels of seperation

Temperament could be a confounding variable- Ainsworth assumed the main influence on seperation and stranger anxiety was an attachment type.

Kagen (1982) suggested temperament is more important. Validity is challenged if attachment behaviour is measured by strange situation but is also affected by temperament, strange situation doesn't purely measure attachment.

Main and Solomon also observed a minority of children display atypical attachments that don't fall within Secure, Avoidant or Resistant. Atypical attachment is also known as disorganised attachment and infants with this display an odd mix of resistant and avoidant behaviours.

Front 6

Define Ethnocentrism

Back 6

is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own.

Front 7

Who conducted the meta-analysis of cultural variation? What were the aims, procedure and findings?

Back 7

Marinus Van IJzendoorn and peter Kroonenberg

Aim:look at the proportions pf secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachments across a range of countries.

Procedure: metaanalysis 32 studies over 8 countries of attachment where the strange situation had been used to investigate attachment types. overall 1990 children used.

Findings:

Interestingly variations between studies in the same country were great than 150% in the USA one was 46% and another was 90% secure attachment cases.

Hint 7

Front 8

Summerise the Italian Cultural variation

Back 8

SImonella et al. -used strange situation- found in the 76 12 month-olds 50% were secure 36% avoidant. This was lower than a lot of studies. Researchers suggest this is as more mothers work long hours and get professional childcare. suggest cultural changes have drastic effects to patterns in secure and insecure attachments.

Front 9

Summerise the Korean study into cultural variation in attachment.

Back 9

Jin et al foundvWhen using the strange situation to understand proportion of attahcment types in korea following results were gained.

similar proportion to secure and insecure but more insecure were resistant behaviour types and only 1 baby showed avoidant. this is similar to the results found in japan. this could be explained in terms of child-rearing as korea and japan have similar child-rearing practises.

Front 10

What conculsion can be made from the cultural variations in attachment?

Back 10

Secure attachment is the norm in many cultures, supporting Bowlby's idea that attachment is innate and universal.

However, the research also clearly shows that cultural practises have an influence on attachment type.

Front 11

Evaluate the meta-analysis of cultural variations (2 points)

Back 11

A strength: you have large samples (nearly 2000 infants) Even Simonella's study have relatively large samples. increases the internal validity by reducing the impact of unusual PPT's

Limitation: Sample may not be representative of different cultures, within countries.

e.g. in Urban Toyoko there were similar proportions to western cultural but rural samples revealed higher levels of resistant attachment.

Differences between countries may be meaningless- the cultural characteristics of the sample need to be more specified.

Front 12

Describe why the strange situation may be biased towards British/US culture

Back 12

The strange situation was designed by American researchers and based ona British theory.

Trying to apply a theory designed for 1 culture to another is known as imposed etic. this disregards the notion of cultural uniqueness.

The idea that a lack of pleasure upon reunion signals avoidant attachment is an imposed etic. In Germany may be seen as independant rather than avoidant.

Front 13

define imposed etic

Back 13

trying to apply a theoriy designed for 1 culture on others

Front 14

What is an alternative theory to the similarities between cultures?

Back 14

Mass media

Bowlby assumed the similarities were due to attachment being innate and universal. Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg suggested that it could be down to mass media.

There are many books/tv programmes broadcasted all over the world suggesting the best practise.- how you act is influenced on what you know.

Front 15

How does the strange situation lack validity?

Back 15

may not be measuring attahcment. Kagen et al. suggested attachment type is due to individual differences such as temperment than relationship with primary caregiver. so the strange situation is measuring anxiety rather than attachment.