ATTACHMENT - Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation Flashcards
what is maternal deprivation?
The emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and their mother/mother-substitute.
what did Bowlby propose?
Continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development.
Prolonged separation can lead to serious damage to emotional and intellectual development.
what is deprivation?
when a child’s attachment to its mother or other caregiver is significantly broken due to no or poor quality care being given to the child.
what is the critical period?
the first 2 and a half years of a baby’s life.
what occurs if a child is separated and deprived of a mothers emotional care during the critical period?
psychological damage is inevitable
what are the effects on intellectual development if a child is deprived from maternal care during critical period?
delayed intellectual development = abnormally low IQ
- Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions than children who were fostered and had a higher standard of emotional care.
what are the effects on emotional development if a child is deprived from maternal care during critical period?
affection-less psychopathy = inability to experience guilt, or strong emotion towards others.
- prevents a person from developing relationships
- associated with criminality
Outline the procedure of Bowlby’s research on the 44 thieves.
- 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing
- control group = 44 non-criminal but emotionally deprived young people
- ‘thieves’ were interviewed for signs of affection-less psychopathy
- families also interviewed to see whether or not they had prolonged maternal separation
Outline the findings of Bowlby’s research on the 44 thieves?
14/44 thieves = affection-less psychopaths
12/14 = prolonged separation from mother
5/30 remaining thieves = separations
2/44 Ps in control group = long separations
what did Bowlby conclude?
Bowlby concluded that prolonged early separation caused affection-less psychopathy.
LIMITATIONS of the theory of maternal deprivation?
- poor quality of evidence it is based on
eg Bowlby (1944)- He himself carried out the interviews on family and thieves which left him open to bias since he knew which teenagers were thieves.
This means that BB original sources of evidenced has serious flaws and would not be taken seriously as evidence nowadays. - confusion between deprivation and privation
Rutter (1981) - pointed out that severe long term damage that Bowlby associated with deprivation may actually be due to privation.
PRIVATION - failure to form any attachments in the first place
So the children in Bowlby’s study may have never formed strong attachments. This means that Bowlby may have over estimated the seriousness of the effects of deprivation in children’s development.
- Bowlby’s idea of critical period is not valid
eg Koluchova (1976) - Czech twins experienced severe abuse from 18moths to age 7. Although they were severely damaged, they got excellent care and recovered fully.
This means that the lasting harm is not inevitable even in cases of severe privation. This denys Bowlby’s idea of the ‘permanent’ damage caused by deprivation during the critical period. The critical period is seen as the sensitive period.
STRENGTHS of the theory on maternal deprivation?
+ research support = levy et al (2003) separating baby rats from mother =permanent negative effect on their social development . This shows that there is some support for Bowlby’s ideas.
+ a positive change in attitudes towards infant care – child care Manuals started to strongly recommend love. This increase the value of the research
+ childcare practices = care in orphanages was improved by taking into account of children’s emotional needs.
+ children were kept in one foster home if possible rather than being moved around.
+ visiting children hospitals became encouraged.
