Methodological issues:
A criticism of this research is that the meta analysis only included 32 studies, half of which were conducted in the US with only 1 being conducted in China using only 36 infants.
Overall 27 studies were from individualistic cultures and only 5 from collectivist cultures. This suggests that their research isn't representative of the whole population.
Not a valid measure of attachment in all cultures:
Another criticism of this research is that the 'strange situation' was created in the US and therefore reflects the culture and norms of the US. Takahashi suggested that this method wasn't suitable for measuring attachment in Japanese mothers and infants. In her own study she found similar levels of secure attachment but found Japanese infants showed no avoidant behaviour but high levels of resistant attachment.
Infants were particularly distresses when left alone but this behaviour may be due to the fact that Japanese infants are rarely separated from their mothers resulting in more 'appearing' to be insecurely attached leading to a falsely high number being classed as resistant.
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