0.4 Neo-freudian perspectives on personality  (Page 23/28)

It has been suggested that attachment theory and interpretations of the strange situation are embedded in Western perspectives and ideals, particularly those of middle-class White Americans. In particular, a secure attachment seems to promote the independence of the child, and its ability to separate from the mother and move out into the world. One of the key measures of a secure attachment is that child is comforted by the presence of its mother, particularly after the child has been in the presence of strangers. However, numerous cultural problems arise from these perspectives. For example, in many African American households children are raised by different members of an extended family, possible including individuals who are not related to the family. Thus, African American children raised in such an environment may respond quite differently to the strange situation, it may not be novel to them (Belgrave&Allison, 2006). As mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, Kenneth and Mamie Clark were two very important individuals who studied the development of African American children. Respectively, they were the first African American man and African American woman to receive Ph.D. degrees in psychology. In addition to studying racial identification in African American children during the 1940s (Clark&Clark, 1947), they established what became the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem, New York. Primarily under Mamie Clark’s guidance, the center provided a broad range of psychological services including consultations for behavioral and emotional problems, vocational guidance for adolescents, and child-rearing education for African American parents. In addition, the center provided the same services for a smaller number of White and Puerto Rican children from working-class families in Harlem. Mamie Clark’s goal was to give the children of Harlem the same sense of emotional security that she had enjoyed as a child, a sense of security that was elusive in the poor neighborhoods of Harlem (Lal, 2002).

Rothbaum et al. (2000) compared American perspectives on attachment to those in Japan, a country with similar socioeconomic conditions but a very different history and culture. Attachment theory has been considered to have three, universal core hypotheses: sensitivity, competence, and the secure base. In order for a child to feel secure, the mother must respond quickly and appropriately when the child perceives a threat. In other words, she must be sensitive to the child’s needs. When a child feels secure, and has a secure relationship with its primary caregivers, attachment theory predicts that the child will grow up socially and emotionally competent. And finally, the secure base is intimately linked with the child’s exploration of the environment and the child’s ability to respond appropriately to environmental stimuli.

If we compare Japan to the United States, and how we define each of the factors listed above, we come to very different conclusions. According to Rothbaum et al. (2000), so-called sensitive parents in the United States emphasize the child’s autonomy. They expect their children to explore the environment, and they wait for their children to express their needs before responding. In Japan, however, mothers try to anticipate their children’s needs, and they promote the child’s dependence on its mother. In Japan, mothers emphasize emotion and social factors, as opposed to communication and physical objects. Similar differences are seen with regard to social competence. An American who grows up socially competent (assumed to be the result of secure attachments in childhood) is expected to be independent and self-sufficient, willing to express and defend their own opinions. In Japan, however, as in all typical collectivist cultures, a socially competent adult is expected to be dependent on the social in-group and emotionally restrained (Rothbaum et al., 2000). With regard to the secure base, in the United States it is expected to encourage the child’s autonomy, exploration, and general orientation to the environment first. In contrast, Japanese children are encouraged to focus more on their mothers, in both distressing situations and in those involving positive emotions. Since the expectations of each aspect of attachment theory are so different in Japan and the United States, which are assumed to be representative of Western and Eastern societies, Rothbaum et al. (2000) question whether attachment theory itself is truly universal. They do not question that children and their parents form important and deeply meaningful attachments, but they do question whether attachment can be reasonably evaluated the same way in all cultures.