3.5: Institutionalisation

Question 1

Institutional care

Answer 1

Institutional care is childcare provided by:

1. Orphanages
2. Children’s homes

Question 2

Affectionless psychopathy

Answer 2

Affectionless psychopathy is an inability to show:
1. Affection
Or,
2. Concern
for others

Question 3

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis was based largely upon studies conducted in the 1930s and 1940s of children raised in orphanages and residential children’s homes.
Institutional care involves distinctive patterns of attachment behaviour and so can be regarded as a phenomenon in its own right.
It involves a mix of privation and deprivation effects.
Institutionalised children often show a distinctive attachment behaviour called what?

Answer 3

It involves a mix of:
1. Privation
2. Deprivation
effects.
Institutionalised children often show a distinctive attachment behaviour called disinhibited attachment

Question 4

Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis was based largely upon studies conducted in the 1930s and 1940s of children raised in orphanages and residential children’s homes.
Institutional care involves distinctive patterns of attachment behaviour and so can be regarded as a phenomenon in its own right.
It involves a mix of privation and deprivation effects.
Institutionalised children often show a distinctive attachment behaviour called disinhibited attachment.
What is disinhibited attachment characterised by?

Answer 4

Disinhibited attachment is characterised by:

1. Clingy, attention-seeking behaviour
2. Indiscriminate sociability to adults

Question 5

Spitz (1946) studied children raised in poor-quality South American orphanages.
Members of staff were overworked and untrained and rarely talked to the children or picked them up, even for feeding.
Children received no affection and had no toys.
The children displayed anaclitic depression, a reaction to the loss of a love object, showing weepiness, weight loss, loss of appetite, inability to sleep and developmental retardation

Answer 5

k

Question 6

Tizard and Hodges (1978) studied children placed into institutional care in the first 4 months of life.
These children were privated, because they had not formed attachments with their mothers.
High staff turnover and the institute’s policy of not letting carers form relationships with children prevented alternative attachments forming.
Some children remained in the institution, some were adopted and some were restored to their natural homes.
There was also a control group of children raised in their natural homes.
The children were assessed at ages 4 and 8 and then again at age 16.
Children who remained in the institution had no strong attachments and had problems relating to peers.
Adopted children formed strong attachments within their adoptive families, but had problems with relationships outside their families.
The restored children tended to have poor family and peer relationships and behavioural problems.
This suggests that institutional care has long-lasting negative effects, but the development of close attachments is possible with loving care, as provided by adoptive parents

Answer 6

k

Question 7

Rutter (2006) found that the multiple carers provided by children’s residential homes led to the formation of disinhibited attachments, supporting the idea of institutional care creating distinct attachment types

Answer 7

k

Question 8

Evaluation:
1. The early studies of children raised in institutions that Bowlby based his maternal deprivation hypothesis on had serious methodological flaws.
For example, the Goldfarb study did not use random samples, so it is possible that the fostered children were naturally brighter, more sociable and healthier than the socially isolated children and that is why they were fostered, rather than placed in institutional care.
As well as this, the institutions provided unstimulating environments and it may have been the lack of stimulation, rather than the absence of maternal care, that led to retarded development.

2. In Tizard and Hodges’ study, the more socially skilled children may have been adopted and so found it easier to form attachments within their adoptive families.
   The study also suffered from atypical sample attrition, where, over time, a certain type of participant (for example, the more troubled children) drops out, thus affecting the reliability of the results

Answer 8

k

Question 9

Institutionalisation

Answer 9

Institutionalisation is a term for the effects of living in an institutional setting

Question 10

Institutionalisation is a term for the effects of living in an institutional setting.
What does the term ‘institution’ refer to?

Answer 10

The term ‘institution’ refers to a place like:
1. A hospital
Or,
2. An orphanage
,where children live for long, continuous periods of time

Question 11

Institutionalisation is a term for the effects of living in an institutional setting.
The term ‘institution’ refers to a place like a hospital or an orphanage, where children live for long, continuous periods of time.
In such places, there is often very little what provided?

Answer 11

In such places, there is often very little emotional care provided