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Psychology Attachment 16 marker

If someone could give this answer a mark out of 16 and some feedback it would be greatly appreciated!

Q: Outline and evaluate research into cultural variation in attachment

The Strange Situation experiment by Ainsworth allows psychologists to look into how attachment types may vary amongst different cultures and why this may be the case. One example of research into cultural variation within attachment is the meta-analysis conducted by Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg. In this study, Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ experiment was conducted in countries across the world. This meta-analysis used 32 different studies and over 2000 strange situation experiments and studied any patterns/trends within the data. It was found that the secure attachment type was the most common attachment type exhibited in all 8 countries. However, the study found that the highest no. of insecure resistant babies was found in Japan and Israel. This is because within these countries the parent observes more traditional roles (mother as a housewife and father as a breadwinner). This meant that the babies were not used to not being around their mother, they therefore displayed higher levels of separation anxiety and shock than babies in other countries, It was also found that Germany had the highest no, of insecure avoidant children because German parents seek independent, non-clingy infants.
One strength of the meta-analysis carried out by Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg is that it used a large sample size. There was a total of 8 different countries that had stark cultural differences within the study. The study therefore has a higher population validity, and the results can be generalised to a number of different cultures.
On the other hand, the number of experiments in each of the 8 countries was disproportional. The greatest number of experiments were carried out in the US. Therefore, the results produced from the meta-analysis may be distorted because there was not an even number of studies from each country. This would therefore affect the validity of this study.
Furthermore, the study could be considered to be non-valid because extraneous variables were not controlled amongst the participants of the study. Extraneous variables such as social class and temperament would have a significant affect on the way the infants would react to being separated from their mothers. Take for instance, infants being raised within a lower socioeconomic background will be more likely to have been raised to be independent and therefore will not show much reaction upon separation from their primary caregiver (mom). This would contrast greatly to the behaviour of their wealthier counterparts/peers when they are separated from their mothers as most were not raised to be independent.

Reply 1

mimi_med2005

Hey, whilst I think your AO1 is v good and covers a lot of the key points regarding the analyses, the evaluations could do with a little bit of bulking up. A bit of general advice would be to make sure all of your evaluations contain something about supporting/conflicting evidence, a "however" point (this is good if you are writing about a criticism), ethical issues or a suggestion about how to improve the methodology of the experiment. These seem to make people think you know more than just the skeleton of the argument and this is the key to the higher marks. This is almost a 16 but just needs that extra sparkle in the evaluation paragraphs! <3

Reply 2

eslaynah

I'm procrastinating revising for my Paper 2 psychology exam so here you go, I hope this helps. <3

Original post by sogieva

The Strange Situation experiment by Ainsworth allows psychologists to look into how attachment types may vary amongst different cultures and why this may be the case.

Currently, the opening sentence isn't relevant enough to the question to get you a mark. Why does it allow psychologists to investigate cultural variations? Because the SS experiment uses lots of standardisation with ordered steps that make it easy for psychologists across the world to replicate it exactly the way the original study did it. So either explain why by saying the above or you can remove the sentence and get right into the juicy details of Van Izjendoorn because that's where most of the marks are.

Original post by sogieva

In this study, Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ experiment was conducted in countries across the world

Van Izjendoorn did not conduct a study, each experiment conducted was a study of its own, he just read all of the reports of the 32 studies and analysed them and you correctly identified this as being called a meta-analysis.
I'm nitpicking here because for the rest of the essay you refer to the research correctly but I'm using it more as an example of how minor inaccuracies affect the examiner's decision on what level of response your essay is.

Level 4 (13-16 marks) = Knowledge is accurate and generally well detailed.

Level 3 (9-12 marks) = Knowledge is evident but there are occasional inaccuracies/omissions.

Original post by sogieva

This is because within these countries the parent observes more traditional roles (mother as a housewife and father as a breadwinner).

I wouldn't say this is right. The more accurate interpretation of why Japan and Israel had higher rate of insecure-resistant is because they have a more collectivist culture (1 mark) which emphasises selflessness and a dependence on family (1 mark). While Germany and UK have a higher rate of avoidant because of individualistic culture which emphasises independence and being self-sufficient which you slightly leaned into explaining when you said "German parents seek independent, non-clingy infants." but you can further develop that by linking it to the specialist terminology "individualistic culture".

I'm gonna return to how a Level 3 response is described: Knowledge is evident but there are occasional inaccuracies/omissions.

Omission means things being left out. You have left out quite an important section of Van Izjerndoorn which is intercultural and intracultural variations. He found that intracultural variations which are differences within a culture (1 mark) were larger than intercultural variations, differences between cultures. This significant part of the meta-analysis findings make your final evaluation point void.

Original post by sogieva

Take for instance, infants being raised within a lower socioeconomic background will be more likely to have been raised to be independent and therefore will not show much reaction upon separation from their primary caregiver (mom). This would contrast greatly to the behaviour of their wealthier counterparts/peers when they are separated from their mothers as most were not raised to be independent.

Izjerndoorn addresses this possibility with his intracultural findings because the fact that differences within one culture were larger than the difference between cultures suggested to him that there are other factors like socioeconomic background which also affect attachment type and this was included in his report.

Original post by sogieva

Therefore, the results produced from the meta-analysis may be distorted because there was not an even number of studies from each country. This would therefore affect the validity of this study.

Now that you know that US, UK, Germany are individualistic cultures, you can develop this evaluation point further. The results aren't distorted because it's uneven from each country, they're distorted because it's uneven from each culture e.g. individualistic and collectivist. There were more studies done in countries with individualistic cultures so the data is culturally biased (1 evaluation) so the meta-analysis results aren't generalisable to the entire population, which lacks population validity (another evaluation). Be specific in what kind of validity. Saying this affects the validity of the study is very vague, you haven't even specified if it affects validity positively or negatively, and you get marks for that. You get a mark for saying this is a weakness, so always make sure you finish (or start like you did for the first) evaluation point by saying this is a strength or this is a weakness.

I would give this 10/16 marks. You either need to expand your evaluation points or you need to do more of them but in less detail (and obviously ensure that they are correct, for example I don't think your last eval point would get more than one mark)
I would generally recommend you to memorise an essay plan so you have condensed all your knowledge into 10ish bullet points and try not to waste any sentences on something that isn't a bullet point. Also, memorising 16 marker essay plans is a great revision tool because if you are able to remember a guaranteed full mark essay plan for the highest mark question, then you're obviously guaranteed to know the information to get full marks on the 1 markers and 4 markers and 8 markers.

Good luck!