Attachment - Romanian orphan studies Flashcards
What are institutions?
- Children’s homes (Orphanages)
- Hostels
- Hospitals
What are the effects of staying in institutions?
-Extended stays can alter normal functioning such as adopting rules and norms of an institution (Institutionalisation), this can result in a loss of personal identity, deindividuation and factors identified by Bowlby such as: Affectionless psychopathy, delinquency and low IQ
What is deprivation?
- Deprivation is a loss or damage to an attachment, so not receiving suitable emotional care from the primary caregiver
- Privation is the total lack of development of any attachment bond
How were the Romanian orphanages revealed to be in such unethical conditions?
- The fall of the communist government in 1989 revealed conditions of 300,000 Romanian orphans suffering from privation
- The orphans lacked physical and emotional care from staff and many of the children were malnourished and abused
What did Rutter’s longitudinal study on Romanian orphanages show about deprivation and the effects of the institutions?
- Rutter conducted a longitudinal study with 165 Romanian orphans who were adopted into UK families
- The orphans were either: Adopted under 6months, 6 to 24months or over 24months old
- The orphans were then compared to a control group of British adoptees
- All the groups were assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15 years old
- Age 6: If adopted after 6 months, the children showed a disinhibited attachment, an overly friendly behaviour to strange adults
- Age 11: If adopted after 6 months the children showed significant delayed intellectual development, the average IQ if the child was adopted after 24 months was 77
- In some cases, the orphans showed characteristics of quasi-autism, problems understanding the meaning of social context
- This suggests, adoption within 6 months avoids effects of privation, and the recovery seen from some of the adopted orphans suggests that the “Critical period” is more of a “Sensitive” period as the children can recover by forming a later attachment
What is an advantage of the Romanian orphan studies?
-Research done in the Romanian orphan studies have resulted in changed policies around adoption and care in orphanages and other institutional settings
What is a disadvantage of Romanian orphan studies?
- Infants were not randomly assigned to parents/caregivers when they were adopted
- This means that more sociable infants may have been picked first, so some of the orphans would have been left out
What did Goldfarb find about fostering British children and the effect on IQ score and social skills?
-Goldfarb showed that early fostering in British children led to higher IQ and improved social skills