Introduction
Hello all, and welcome to my first post of the new year! Today, I am researching a rather niche topic that did not realize could be looked at through an anthropological lens: attachment styles. I recently learned about this psychological phenomenon during my studies in AP Psych class, and I found the science behind innate infant behaviors to be fascinating.
A Brief History of Attachment Theory
First developed by the 20th century psychiatrist John Bowlby, attachment theory postulates that infants must bond with a primary caregiver to properly develop socially and emotionally. Though the concept of attachment has been studied extensively in the last 100 years, developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth’s famous “strange situation” experiment paved the way for modern understanding. This experiment placed infants in an unfamiliar room with a caregiver before removing the caregiver and leaving the infants alone. After a while, the caregivers returned, and the reactions displayed by the infants were recorded. This study found that attachment to a caregiver typically is expressed in either a secure or insecure manner, with insecure attachment taking the form of anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment (anxious-avoidant). Though one’s attachment style manifests itself at an early age and is influenced mainly by primary caregiver interactions, these styles tend to stick with us into adulthood, and they continue to be evident in mature relationship dynamics.
Cultural Influences
Now that an understanding of the psychology behind attachment styles has been established, I will turn to a well-known meta-analytic study of existing “strange situation” experiments (Van Ijzendoorn & Kroonenberg) across cultures to examine cultural differences in attachment. This analysis blends psychology and anthropology in its classification of cultures as either collectivist or individualist (see earlier article). Examining almost 2000 instances of the strange situation across 8 different cultures, researchers found that levels of secure attachment were relatively uniform across cultures (with Britain having the highest percentage and China having the lowest). More interestingly, individualistic countries that value independence tended to have higher levels of disorganized attachment, while collectivistic countries tended to have high levels of resistant anxious attachment. Despite these findings, intercultural variations of attachment styles suggest that culture is not a necessarily a primary influence on attachment styles or parenting styles. Moreover, unique ways of life (such as the Israeli way of raising children in a kibbutz) can contribute to the development of attachment styles that can skew the overall outcome of studies such as this one. In conclusion, culture plays a role in the development of attachment styles, but unique traditions as well as differing parenting styles mean that more research needs to be done to make a definitive statement as to what extent culture truly affects attachment.
Thank you for reading this month’s post! If you are interested in the concept of attachment styles and want to learn about what yours could be, check out this short survey that gives you a general idea of your style: https://www.attachmentproject.com/
Note: I am in no way affiliated with the linked survey; I included it purely as an interesting resource.