Attachment: Romanian Orphan Studies Flashcards
What is institutionalisation?
This refers to the effects of living in an institutional environment (e.g., an orphanage or prison). Such places often lack the emotional care of a family environment.
Why did Romanian orphan research develop as a way of studying institutionalisation?
During the Cold War, Romanian orphanages offered an extremely low standard of care. When the Cold War ended, Western researchers were able to examine the effects of extreme
institutionalisation on development. The most famous of these so-called Romanian orphan studies was Rutter’s (2011) English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study.
Describe the procedure of Rutgers (2011) English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study.
> AIM : To investigate the short and long-term effects of institutionalisation on development.
SAMPLE : 165 Romanian children who spent early lives in Romanian orphanages before being adopted in the UK, and a control group of 52 non-institutionalised British children who had
been adopted in the UK before the age 6 months.
DESIGN :
• Rutter used a longitudinal design. This meant he continued to study the differences
between the British and Romanian adoptees over many years.
• IV = One of the independent variables was the standard of care within the
institutions, with some of the children growing up in the appalling conditions of the
Romanian orphanages and other orphans growing up in British orphanages, which
had a higher standard of care. Another independent variable being studied was the
age at which the Romanian children were adopted, with some adopted before 6
months and some after.
• DV = Rutter measured the physical, cognitive and social development of the adoptees at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15.
FINDINGS :
• Physical
– All Romanian orphans showed signs of malnourishment upon arrival. After being
adopted, they all caught up with the control group by age 6.
• Cognitive
– The average IQ of the Romanian adoptees was below average. However, they all
made improvements after being adopted. Those adopted before 6 months caught
up with the control group by age 4. However, the average IQ of those adopted
between 6 months and two years never caught up with the control group or the
group of Romanian orphans who had been adopted before 6 months.
• Social
– Those adopted after 6 months often displayed a disinhibited attachment style,
meaning they showed indiscriminate friendliness (i.e., they are just as friendly
everyone, whether they be their adopted parents or complete strangers). This
disinhibited attachment style was rare amongst those adopted before 6 months.
CONCLUSIONS :
• Institutionalisation can be physically, socially and cognitively damaging to a child’s
development.
• The outcomes for all institutionalised children (no matter what age they are adopted) can be
greatly improved if they are adopted.
• However, the extent of these improvements does depend on when adoption happens. For
those children adopted before 6 months, the effects of institutionalisation were not longlasting, but those adopted after 6 months were more likely to experience long-lasting
negative effects.
What is a Limitation of Romanian Orphan Studies?
They use a natural methodology. Rutter’s ERA, for example, was not a true experiment. Although Rutter investigated the effect of independent variables, like the age of adoption, on dependent variables, like intellectual
development, he was unable to directly manipulate the independent variables. Instead, Rutter observed how natural variation in variables like age of adoption affected the development of the
children he studied. The problem with the use of the natural experiment method for research into institutionalization
is it prevents researchers from using experimental controls like random allocation. For example,
because Rutter was unable to use random allocation to determine the age at which an orphan was
adopted, he was unable to control for individual differences. Since these differences (e.g.,
personality) could affect both the age of adoption (an independent variable) and the child’s later
development (the dependent variables), the lack of random allocation could have resulted in these
individual differences becoming confounding. This lack of experimental control undermines the
internal validity of Romanian orphan research, making it difficult to be confident in what these studies have concluded about the effects of institutionalization. However, since it is ethically and practically impossible for researchers to decide the type of institution a child is raised in or the age at which they’re adopted, it isn’t obvious how instiutionalization could be studied with full experimental control.
Why is A strength of Rutter’s Romanian orphan research (the English and Romanian Adoptee study) is
that it has provided evidence that both challenges and supports Bowlby’s ideas on
attachment?
Rutter’s findings from the ERA provide some support for Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory, as they do back up his hypothesis that the complete deprivation experienced by the children who grew up in Romanian orphanages, where the standard of care was terrible, did
experience significant harm to their social, physical and intellectual development. However,
Rutter’s findings did challenge Bowlby’s claim that maternal deprivation would necessarily result in irreversible harm. As children adopted before 6 months were able to catch up with the control group, it’s clear that good quality care can undo the effects of maternal
deprivation. Rutter also found no evidence of the affectionless psychopathy that Bowlby claimed was a consequence of the complete deprivation, which we would expect to see in the
Romanian orphans if Bowlby was right. Rutter’s finding that the age of 6 months was crucial for later development also challenges Bowlby’s claim in the monotropic theory that the first
two years of life is a critical period, as it seems the first 6 months of life are actually critical.
Why is a strength of Romanian orphan research into the effects of institutionalisation is its use of a longitudinal design?
Unlike cross-sectional research, longitudinal designs require the researcher to study the same group of participants over an extended period. The advantage of this design is that it controls for individual differences, such as the personalities of the orphans. Since the orphans remain the same throughout the study, any changes in their development over time cannot be attributed to their individual differences. This means it’s easier to infer that differences in the development of the orphans were due to the age of adoption, rather than being due to the individual differences of the children
