Culture and attachment: How culture might effect the attachment process

1. Culture and attachment: How culture might effect the attachment process Robin Goodwin, Kinga Kunowska Brunel University, London

2. Culture and attachment: A broad overview • We can several kinds of relationship between culture and attachment, and the consequences of attachment. • These make different assumptions about • The universality of particular parenting experiences. • The impact of those parenting experiences on attachment. • The relationship between attachment and ‘other things’ (e.g. personality, relationship schemata, love styles)

3. Universalist approach Parenting Attachment Relationships

4. Universalists.. • Freud (1914): Attachment love • Bowlby’s work (e.g. Bowlby, 1959) • Ainsworth et al (1978): universal relationship between mothering and security • Early attachment experiences influence general relationship schemata that then affect adult “love schemata” (e.g. Shaver & Hazan, 1993) • Doherty et al (1994): attachment styles more important than culture in shaping love styles. Interviewed Hawaiian students from 4 ethnic groups. Found attachment better predictor than I-C.

5. Culture as moderator of childhood attachment Cultural values Parenting Attachment Relationships

6. Culture as moderator of childhood attachment • May be cross-cultural differences in proportions of both childhood and adult attachment styles (e.g. Sprecher et al, 2004). • May reflect cultural differences in child-rearing practices. Parenting can be seen as “an evolved answer to adaptive problems” (Keller, 2002) • Note: Most work assumes that the parenting experience  attachment link culturally consistent • ‘Cultural’ values (e.g. IC) can also emerge from culturally rooted early childhood experiences (Keller, 2002).

7. Attachment as an adaptation Cultural events Attachment styles Relationships

8. Attachment as an adaptation • But maybe adult attachment styles are influenced by more than parenting? Can “internal working models” be subject to fairly rapid transitions, independent of parenting experiences? • Evidence of some rapid changes in core aspects of adult interpersonal relationships • E.g. trust levels fell substantially in Eastern Europe in years following end of Communism (Inglehart, 2003). What kind of anxieties/ ambivalence does this produce?

9. Definition of avoidant attachment style (Hazan & Shaver, 1990): “I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely” • Work on mortality salience demonstrates that when people more scared, new unexpected attachments form (Schachter, Mikulincer). • Insomuch as attachment style is personal resource, may also be critical in appraising societal change (Lazarus, 1991)

10. Attachment, culture, and ‘other things’: culture as mediator ? Attachment Relationships Culture

11. Attachment, culture, and ‘other things’: culture as mediator • Some evidence of cultural differences in association between attachment  marital relationship (Onishi & Gjerde, 2002 in Japan) • Q: Just how “relevant” is an individuals attachment style when s/he comes to forming adult relationships? • Substantial proportion of world’s marriages are at least semi-arranged (Goodwin, 1999).

12. People in most cultures desire relationships with particular others (attractive, charming, British). • But in practice: Where broader societal factors are more important (Collectivist societies?) variance explained by attachment style in actual relationship formation may be small

13. In sum Culture Parenting Attachment Relationships a b • Cultural/ Societal changes directly impact on adult (?) attachment • Culture directly impacts on relationship practices