Attachment - Broken Attachments

Question 1

What are the key assumptions of Bowlby’s (1951) Theory of Maternal Deprivation?

Answer 1

• continued emotional care from mother is essential
• separation from mother may lead to maternal deprivation
• separation is different from deprivation
• critical period of 30 months
• intellectual development: deprivation lowers IQ
• emotional development: deprivation linked to affectionless psychopathy

Question 2

Why is continued emotional care from mother essential?

Answer 2

Continuous emotional (maternal) care from a mother or mother-substitute is necessary for normal emotional and intellectual development.

Question 3

What may separation lead to?

Answer 3

Separation from mother may lead to maternal deprivation. Bowlby believed that mother-love in infancy is ‘as important for mental health as vitamins and proteins are for physical health’.

Question 4

How is separation different from deprivation?

Answer 4

• Separation means the child not being physically in the presence of the primary attachment figure.
• Deprivation means losing emotional care as a result of the separation (could be physical separation or because they are unable to provide the child with care).

Deprivation can be avoided if alternative emotional care is offered, thus separation doesn’t always cause deprivation.

Question 5

What is the critical period?

Answer 5

If a child is separated from their mother (without substitute emotional care) for an extended time during the first 30 months, then psychological damage is inevitable.

Question 6

How does deprivation affect intellectual development?

Answer 6

If a child is deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period, they will suffer abnormally low IQ. Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQs in children from institutions compared to fostered children.

Question 7

How does deprivation affect emotional development?

Answer 7

Lack of emotional care may also lead to affectionless psychopathy - the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others. This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.

Question 8

Procedure

Bowlby (1944) 44 Thieves Study

Answer 8

This study examined the links between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation. The sample in this study was 44 delinquent teenagers accused of stealing. Families were also interviewed to establish any prolonged separations from mothers. A control group of 44 non-criminal teenagers, with emotional problems were all assessed to see how often maternal deprivation occurred to the children who were not thieves.

All ‘thieves’ were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy characterised by a lack of affection, guilt and empathy.

Question 9

Findings and Conclusions

Bowlby (1944) 44 Thieves Study

Answer 9

14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths. Of these, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives.

In contrast, only 5 of the remaining 30 ‘thieves’ had experienced separations.

In the control group 2/44 had maternal separation but 0/44 were categorised as affectionless psychopaths.

This suggests prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.

Question 10

What are the strengths of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 10

• studies have demonstrated maternal deprivation

Question 11

What are the weaknesses of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 11

• sources of evidence for maternal deprivation are flawed
• counter-evidence does not support Bowlby’s findings
• later research suggests that the critical period is more of a sensitive period (effects can be reversed)
• Bowlby didn’t distinguish between deprivation and privation
• 44 thieves study had no control over confounding variables, may have suffered from investigator effects (leading them to respond to demand characteristics) and interviews may have been unreliable and lacked objectivity

Question 12

How do supporting studies demonstrate maternal deprivation?

Answer 12

Most psychologists are critical of the maternal deprivation theory, but one line of research supports the idea that maternal deprivation can have long-term effects.

Levy et al. (2003) showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as a little as a day had a permanent effect on social development.

However, there is always some doubt over the extent to which animal studies like this can be generalised to human behaviour.

Question 13

How are sources of evidence for maternal deprivation flawed?

Answer 13

Goldfarb studied war-orphans who were traumatised and often had poor after-care. These factors may have caused later developmental difficulties rather than separation.

Similarly, children growing up from birth in poor quality institutions were deprived of many aspects of care, not just maternal care.

Bowlby carried out the assessments for affectionless psychopathy and the family interviews himself, knowing what he hopes to find. This may have produced biased results.

Question 14

What counter-evidence is there that doesn’t support Bowlby’s findings?

Answer 14

Lewis (1954) partially replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale, looking at 500 young people.

Early prolonged maternal separation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.

This is a limitation of Bowlby’s theory because it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal separation.

Question 15

How does later research suggest that the critical period is more of a sensitive period rather than critical?

Answer 15

Koluchova’s (1976) case study of Czech twin boys isolated from age 18 months to 7 years old (locked in a cellar by their step-mother). Later they were looked after by two loving adults and appeared to recover fully in terms of school work and later married successfully.

Shows that severe deprivation can have positive outcomes provided the child has some social interaction and good aftercare.

Cases like the Czech twins show that the period identified by Bowlby may be a ‘sensitive’ one but it cannot be critical.

Question 16

How does Bowlby not distinguish between deprivation and privation?

Answer 16

Rutter (1981) distinguished between deprivation (the loss of the primary attachment figure after attachment has developed) and privation (the failure to form any attachment at all).

Rutter argues that the severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is actually more likely to be the result of privation.

Many of the 44 thieves in Bowlby’s study had moved from home to home during their childhood so may have never formed attachments in the first place. This could be the cause of their affectionless psychopathy rather than deprivation.

Question 17

How is there being no control over confounding variables a weakness?

Answer 17

There is no way to tell if prolonged separation was the cause of their affectionless psychopathy, or if there may be other factors (more important) that contributed to it.

For example, those people may have been from a more deprived neighbourhood or violent homes that led them to criminality.

Question 18

Aim and Procedure

Rutter et al. (2011) English and Romanian Adoptee Study

Answer 18

To investigate as to what extent do children recover from suffering caused by deprivation or
privation at an early stage in their life, once placed in good care.

The researchers have followed a group of 165 Romanian orphans who experienced very poor conditions before being adopted in Britain.

This longitudinal study has tested the extent to which good care can make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at 4, 6, 11 and 15 years.

The study also followed a control group of 52 adopted British children.

Detailed measurement through interviews and observations were used to analyse the child’s behaviour.

Question 19

Findings and Conclusions

Rutter et al. (2011) English and Romanian Adoptee Study

Answer 19

Half of the orphans showed undernourishment and delayed intellectual development when they came to the UK. At age 11 recovery rates were related to their age of adoption:

• those adopted before 6 months had a mean IQ of 102
• those adopted between 6 months and 2 years had a mean IQ of 86
• those adopted after 2 years had a mean IQ of 77

Frequency of disinhibited attachment related to the age of adoption.

• apparent in children adopted after they were 6 months old: clinginess, attention-seeking, and indiscriminate affection to strangers.
• rare in children adopted before the age of 6 months.

These findings support the view that there is a sensitive period in the development of attachments - a failure to form an attachment before the age of 6 months appears to have long-lasting effects.

Question 20

Aim and Procedure

Zeanah et al. (2005) Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Answer 20

The purpose of the study was to determine whether removing young children from institutional care and placing them in foster care would enhance their developmental outcomes as assessed through brain and behavioral functioning. It was a randomised controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for children abandoned at or around the time of birth and placed in one of six institutions for young children in Bucharest, Romania.

The researchers used the Strange Situation to assess attachment in 95 children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care.

They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never experienced institutional care.

They also asked the children’s carers through interviews about unusual social behaviour such as clinginess, inconsistent patterns of behaviour, attention seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults and sometimes showing strong attachment other times avoiding the caregiver.

Question 21

Findings and Conclusions

Zeanah et al. (2005) Bucharest Early Intervention Project

Answer 21

Only 19% of the institutionalised group were securely attached. 65% classified with disorganised attachment.

This was compared to 74% of the control group having a secure attachment and less than 20% having a disinhibited attachment type.

The high percentage of disorganised attachment children (mixture of avoidant and resistant behaviours) is not ideal as it shows signs of stress and fear in the child’s personality. So institutional care is commonly damaging for mental health in later life due to trauma caused.

Question 22

What are the strengths of the Romanian orphan studies?

Answer 22

• studying Romanian orphans has important practical applications
• Romanian orphan study has fewer confounding variables than other research

Question 23

What are the weaknesses of the Romanian orphan studies?

Answer 23

• issues with generalisability
• children were not randomly assigned to conditions
• the long-term effects of early experience are not yet clear

Question 24

What important practical applications does studying Romanian orphans have?

Answer 24

Results from this research have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions (Langton 2006).

Children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child. They have one or two ‘key workers’ who play a central role.

This gives the child a chance to develop normal attachments and avoid disinhibited attachments, immensely valuable in practical terms.

Question 25

How does the Romanian orphan study have fewer confounding variables than other research?

Answer 25

There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study. These often involved children who experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised.

Neglect, abuse and bereavement meant it was hard to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation. The children were affected by multiple factors functioning as confounding variables.

In the case of Romanian orphans, it is possible to study institutionalisation without these confounding variables because most were abandoned at birth. So the findings have increased internal validity.

Question 26

Why do the Romanian studies lack generalisability?

Answer 26

The conditions of the orphanages are so bad that the results may not apply to institutional care or general situations of deprivation.

Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when it came to forming any relationship with the children.

The unusual situational variables mean the studies may lack generalisability.

Question 27

Why is the children not being randomly assigned to conditions a weakness?

Answer 27

Rutter et al. did not interfere with the adoption process, so those children adopted early may have been more social ones, a confounding variable.

To control for such variables, the Bucharest Early Intervention study did randomly assign the orphans to institutional care or fostering.

This is methodologically better because it removed the confounding variable of some children being selected by parents, but it raises ethical issues. The case involves American investigators conducting a study with an extremely vulnerable population in a country with fewer protections for human subjects than the US.

Question 28

Why are the long-term effects of early experience not yet clear?

Answer 28

It is too soon to say for certain whether children suffered short- or long-term effects because the adopted orphans have only been followed into their mid-teens.

The children who spent longer in institutions and currently lag behind in intellectual development or display attachment difficulties may still ‘catch up’ as adults.

Equally, early-adopted/fostered children who appear to have no issues now may experience emotional problems as adults.

Question 29

What are the factors that make children more vulnerable to the long term effects of maternal deprivation?

Answer 29

• age: 7 months - 3 years critical
• gender: boys tend to fare worse than girls and temperament
• previous mother-child relationship: e.g. secure or insecure
• previous separation experience
• attachment to others: multiple attachments
• quality of care
• type of separation: e.g. death or illness, if properly managed, can have less of a detrimental effect than divorce or desertion

Question 30

Who was Bifulco et al. (1992)?

Answer 30

Bifulco et al. (1992) supports the maternal deprivation hypothesis. They studied 250 women who had lost mothers, through separation or death, before they were 17. They found that loss of their mother through separation or death doubles the risk of depressive and anxiety disorders in adult women. The rate of depression was the highest in women whose mothers had died before the child reached the age of 6.

Question 31

What were the key points of Freud and Dann’s study?

Answer 31

• Children who have not made secure attachments to adults can make strong attachments to peers.
• Very young children can develop a strong sense of fairness.
• Children deprived of adult relationships will respond to adults in very immature and aggressive ways.
• Children expect adults to respect the rules of their group if the adults are to be part of it.
• Children who have suffered severe deprivation catch up very quickly when exposed to a stimulating environment.
• Children who have severe behavioural difficulties are not necessarily deficient, delinquent or psychotic.

Doesn’t support Bowlby because they later went on to develop adult attachment relationships. However, although they didn’t have bonds with adults, they had each other. Also, the staff at Bulldog’s Bank centre weren’t just sensitive to their needs, but continuously available, providing at least a small amount of adult attachment.