Attachment - Deprivation and Institutionalisation Flashcards
Define deprivation
when a child loses an element of the primary attachment figure’s emotional care
What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
if the attachment is broken or disrupted during the critical period, the child will suffer permanent damage
What did Bowlby think maternal deprivation could lead to?
having no morals
depression
affectionless psychopathy
What was the procedure for Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
Sample - 44 child thieves compared to 44 child non-criminals (all referred to clinic for behaviour)
IV(1) - 44 thieves
IV(2) - non-criminals
self report techniques (interview)
What were the results from Bowlby’s 44 thieves experiment?
32% of thieves - affectionless psychopaths
86% of these had suffered early maternal deprivation
What are some strengths from Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
real life applications - helped improve care for children in hospitals, allowing more visits from parents
What are some weaknesses from Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
biased sample - only boys used
researcher bias - Bowlby did interviews himself
memory reconstruction - parents asked to recall up to 14 years ago
social desirability bias
findings correlated - not necessarily causation
What is institutionalisation?
the effects of children living in an institutional setting for long periods of time with little emotional care
What was the procedure for Rutter’s romanian orphan study?
longitudinal study of long term effects of maternal deprivation + institutionalisation
IV(1) - infants adopted before age of 2
IV(2) - infants adopted by the age of 4
DV - physical, cognitive and social development
What were the findings from Rutter’s romanian orphan study?
Many children had:
Physical underdevelopment
intellectual underfunctioning
poor parenting in later life
disinhibited attachment
lack of internal working model
affectionless psychopathy
quasi-autism
However many recovered
What is quasi-autism?
the difficulty understanding social contexts and displaying obsessional behaviours
caused by maternal deprivation but given the proper care children can recover
What are some strengths of Rutter’s romanian orphan study?
real life applications - improved orphanages + institutions
real life applications - key workers in hospitals, one person has max 4 children to look after
all children had same deprivation - rare in other orphanages, removes confounding variable
reliable - supported by Bowlby
longitudinal study - collected both short + long term effects
What are some weaknesses of Rutter’s romanian orphan study?
not generalisable - orphans were in such bad conditions that may not apply to other orphanages/insitutions
researchers didn’t interfere with adoption process - more sociable children may have been adopted first and they all went into different families with different socio-economic statuses, cultures etc, may have affected recovery
only deprivation considered as a cause - orphans also malnourished and had no mental stimulation
What type of relationships do insecure-avoidant people seek out?
relationships where they’re not involved or emotionally close
What type of relationships do insecure-resistant people seek out?
relationships where they’re more controlling or argumentative
