Development in context: What we need to know to assess children’s attachment relationships

Autor: Wiebke Johanna Schmidt, Heidi Keller, Mariano Rosabal Coto
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Developmental Psychology. 57:2206-2219
ISSN: 1939-0599
0012-1649
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001262
Popis: Attachment studies mostly follow the Western middle-class model in theory and methods. To demonstrate that the assessment of children's caregiving context is an often neglected, but crucial prerequisite for attachment studies, we (a) conducted a literature analysis of attachment research in non-Western contexts and (b) empirically investigated the caregiving arrangements and cultural concepts of attachment figures in three cultural groups in Costa Rica: rural Guanacaste, urban San José, and rural indigenous Bribri. All persons involved in caring for 65 infants (7-20 months) participated in the study, resulting in a total of 179 semistructured interviews. The samples showed differences in caregiving practices, with the urban sample resembling Western middle-class contexts emphasizing the maternal importance; the two rural samples showing extensive caregiving networks; however, differently composed. Moreover, the three samples revealed culturally specific concepts of potential attachment figures. The study emphasizes the need for culturally sensitive conceptual and methodological approaches in attachment research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Databáze: OpenAIRE