Abstract
The fundamental argument that motivates this volume, namely that attachment theory’s claims and constructs suffer from profound ethnocentrism, is not new. A handful of cross-cultural researchers have raised these worries since the early days of attachment theory, for more than a quarter century now. Most of these earlier critiques questioned the cross-cultural applicability of a category system that designated children’s attachment to their caregivers as secure versus insecure, and measurement along this dimension by means of the Strange Situation (SS)—an experimental procedure for testing the child’s relative security through absenting its mother from the laboratory. The current volume expands this critique beyond questions of classification and measurement, to question the cultural assumptions behind such a category system and such an experimental design, and extends this line of questioning to ethnocentric concepts beyond insecure attachment.
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© 2013 Naomi Quinn and Jeannette Marie Mageo
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Quinn, N., Mageo, J.M. (2013). Attachment and Culture: An Introduction. In: Quinn, N., Mageo, J.M. (eds) Attachment Reconsidered. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137386724_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137386724_1
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