4.1.3 INSTITUTIONALISATION + LATER RELATIONSHIPS Flashcards
1
Q
what is institutionalisation?
A
- the behaviour patterns of children who have been raised outside of the family home in an institution such as an orphanage or a residential children’s home
2
Q
what happened in Romania?
A
- during the 1990s, horrific images flooded the news of children in poor conditions in Romanian orphanages
- kept in poor conditions and received little in the way of emotional care
3
Q
what was the procedure of Rutter et al. in 2011?
A
- conducted a longitudinal study on 165 Romanian orphans adopted by British parents
- children were split into 4 groups:
-> group 1: 58 children under the age of 6 months
-> group 2: 59 children between the ages of 6 and 24 months
-> group 3: 48 children over 48 months
-> group 4: 52 british adoptees who were the control group - each group was assessed at the ages of 4, 6, 11 and 15
- start of observations, over 1/2 of Romanian orphans were suffering from severe malnutrition and low IQ, showing delayed development
- compared to the control group
4
Q
what were the findings of Rutter’s study?
A
- age 6: adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment (overly friendly behaviour towards unknown adults) and had problems with peers
age 11: 54% of kids adopted after 6 months that had shown type D: Disinhibited behaviour, still showed disinhibited attachment
eg) attention seeking behaviour towards all adults
lack of fear of strangers
inappropriate physical contact
lack of checking back to the parent in stressful situations
- those adopted by British families before 6 months old showed secure ‘normal’ emotional development / attachment compared with UK children adopted at the same age
mean IQ scores
- adopted before 6 months = 102
- between 6 months and 2yrs = 86
- after 2yrs = 77
5
Q
what were the conclusions of Rutter’s study?
A
- suggest long term consequences may be less severe than was once thought if children have the opportunity to form attachments
-> slower development rather than irreversible damage - when children don’t form attachments, the consequences are likely to be severe
- adoption after first 6 months of life, means the child will have longer-term effects of institutionalisation on the child
- challenges Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation as Rutter shows recovery is possible: difficult but possible
6
Q
evaluate positives of Rutter’s study on Romanian orphans?
A
- due to the research on institutions and the negative effects they have, policy changes were made to benefit children
-> children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers
for each children
-> now have one / two ‘key workers’ who play a central role in their
emotional care - lack of confounding variables
-> Romanian orphans had been handed over by loving parents who
couldn’t afford to keep them - Romanian orphanage study allowed psychologists to study cause and effect (usually hard to do with adoption studies)
-> adopted kids have been removed for neglect / abuse reasons
-> however, isn’t the cause with the Romanian orphanages
7
Q
evaluate some limitations of the Romanian Orphan Studies
A
- children weren’t randomly allocated to conditions
-> the more sociable children could’ve been adopted first - could lack external validity as the quality of care was so poor in the Romanian orphanages that it can’t compare to others
-> the harmful effects in Romanian orphans may present effects of
poor institutional care rather than institutional care in general - Hodges and Tizard (1989) stated the adverse effects of institutionalisation could be reversed if children were adopted by effective families / had adequate care
-> kids who had been adopted by adequate families often coped
better on measures of behavioural and peer relationships than
those who returned to their biological families - once children were adopted they may not wish to take part in the study anymore so the results wouldn’t be representative
8
Q
what did Bowlby suggest about early attachments and later relationships?
A
- later relationships are likely to be a continuation of early attachment styles
- the behaviour of the infant’s primary attachment figure promotes an internal working model of relationships
- leads to the infant expecting the same
9
Q
what is the continuity hypothesis?
A
- suggests future relationships will follow the pattern based on this template
- impacting childhood relationships / adult relationships
/ relationships with their own children - there’s a consistency between early emotional experiences and later relationships
10
Q
what did Hazan and Shaver conduct?
A
- conducted a ‘love quiz study
- asked people to respond to a love quiz in the newspaper
- quiz examined feelings in a romantic relationship
- also completed questions on their childhood relationships with their parents and their attachment types
11
Q
what correlation did they find?
A
- between adult relationships and attachment types
-> securely attached adults believe in long-lasting love and were
less likely to get divorced
-> insecure types were more likely to report loneliness
-> suggests there’s a link between childhood attachment and adult
relationships
12
Q
what did McCarthy do and what was found?
A
- studied 40 adult women who had been assessed as children in their early attachment types
- securely attached as infants had the most secure and ‘best’ adult friendships and relationships
- insecure and resistant as infants struggled to maintain friendships
- insecure avoidant as infants struggled with intimate relationships
- this supports the work of Bowlby and Hazan and Shaver
13
Q
what is an alternative explanation for continuity in relationships?
A
- temperament hypothesis
- which argues an infant’s temperament affects the way a parent responds
- may be a determining factor in infant attachment type
- the infants temperament may explain their issues (good / bad) with relationships in later life
14
Q
evaluate the strengths of research into this correlation
A
- internal working model has a practical real-life application
- understanding why a child or adult may be struggling due to their attachment type allows those working with them to support them better
- may help those who weren’t securely attached to reach relationship stability as they grow older
15
Q
evaluate the limitations of research into the correlation between early attachments and later relationships
A
- self-report techniques can be less valid as ppts may under or over-exaggerate
- may also be bias in the type of person who replies to adverts in newspapers
eg) maybe they recently had a relationship end and wanted to vent - difficult to establish a cause and effect as it’s a correlation
-> further research would be required
