AS ATTACHMENT; ROMANIAN ORPHAN STUDIES

Question 1

Describe the background to Rutter’s 2011 longitudinal study of Romanian orphans

Answer 1

• Bowlby’s MDH predicted long term -ve impacts for thoise who experienced early maternal deprivation. These effects were studied by Rutter et al (2011) in the context of institutionalisation
• President of Romania at the time in the 1990s required every woman to have 5 children to strengthen the population, but most ppl couldn’t afford to look after so many children and so the kids were put into large institutions.
• Institutions were extremely over-crowded and understaffed, and so each baby got virtually no interaction and play time; babies often spent whole days just alone in their cots, propped up and left to feed themselves with a bottle.
• In the 1990s, a lot of these children were adopted by British parents, who Rutter used as his sample

Question 2

Describe Rutter’s procedure

Answer 2

3 conditions: C1 were adopted before 6 months, C2 between 6 months and 2 years, and C3 after 2 yrs. Also used a control group of 52 British children who were also adopted around the same time

Rutter assessed physical, emotional and cognitive development at ages 4,6,11 and 15.

Question 3

Describe Rutter’s findings

Answer 3

• At point of adoption, 50% had poor physical health and low IQ.
• By age 11, IQ of C1 rose dramatically, but IQ of C2 and C3 only rose slightly, and these differences remained at age 16
• C2 and C3 (i.e. those adopted after 6 months) showed high levels of disinhibited attachment, but C1 showed very low levels, just like the control group

Question 4

Describe the 2 effects of institutionalisation

Answer 4

Disinhibited attachment: clinginess, attention seeking, social beh directed towards all adults; familiar and unfamiliar. Rutter explained this as these children never spent enough time with any one caregiver during the critical period to form a secure attachment, so they’ll seek attention from anyone; not showing any stranger anxiety

Mental retardation: when adopted, most children showed signs of mental retardation, but those adopted before 6 months caught up by age 4; intellectual dev can be affected by institutionalisation, but this can be reversed if adopted quickly

Question 5

Evaluate the Romanian orphan study

Answer 5

(+) Longitudinal study so individual progress and development can be tracked
(+) Improved practices in orphanages; orphans now have just one main worker instead of lots, so they can form a better attachment
(+) Previous studies were available, but used children that had suffered trauma beforehand, which was a large extraneous variable; these children hadn’t experienced trauma so better cause and effect bet institutionalisation and long term effects
(-) These Romanian orphanages were exceptionally bad, and so it may not be appropriate to generalise to all institutions