Bowlby Flashcards
How can the psychodynamic approach be applied to Bowlby’s research?
Psychodynamic psychologists believed that the need for food was attached to the oral stage and created a link to the mother as a source of enjoyment.
Attachment and any break in that attachment is problematic and has long term consequences for the child.
What’s the methodology?
A series of case studies.
There was a control group but the study wasn’t an experiment.
The final analysis looked at an association between the two groups of participants (thieves and control group) and experiences of separation.
Opportunity sampling.
What’s the methodology (the thieves)?
44 children who attended a child guidance clinic in London.
These children were described as ‘thieves’ because stealing was one of their ‘symptoms’.
Only a few had actually been charged in Court partly because many of them were too young to be charged.
31 boys.
13 girls.
Aged between 5 and 17.
How were the thieves graded?
They were graded in terms of the seriousness of their stealing.
Grade IV thieves (22 of the children) had been stealing for a long time, some for more than three years. Grade I thieves (4 of the children) had committed only one theft.
What are the key points about the IQ of the thieves?
The ‘thieves’ were mainly of average intelligence. About 50% had an IQ score in the range of 85 - 114.
(100 was the mean IQ)
A further 15 of the ‘thieves’ had a higher IQ. Two were below 85.
What’s the methodology (mothers)?
The mothers of the ‘thieves’ and the control group participants were also involved in the study.
The mothers were interviewed in order to assess the histories of the children.
What’s the methodology (control group)?
Consisted of a further 44 children who attended the clinic.
This group was similar in age, sex and IQ to the ‘thieves’.
Like the ‘thieves’ this group were emotionally disturbed but they didn’t steal.
Altogether, 88 children were involved in the study. They had all been referred to the guidance clinic for emotional problems.
What occurred during the initial examination?
Each child was given mental tests by a psychologist to assess their intelligence.
(The Binet scale was used.)
The emotional attitude of the child was noted.
At the same time a social worker interviewed the child’s mother and recorded preliminary details of the child’s early psychiatric history.
Both the psychologist and the social worker then reported to the psychiatrist (John Bowlby).
The psychiatrist then interviewed the child and the mother.
After this two - hour examination the team considered school and other reports and discussed their conclusions.
What are the key points about the therapy?
Many of the children continued to meet with the psychiatrist weekly over a period of six months or more.
The mothers talked over their problems with the social worker.
These meetings and discussions enabled a detailed case history to be recorded and also enabled the psychiatrist to diagnose the children’s emotional problems.
What are the key points about the diagnosis?
In order to determine what previous experiences might have caused the “44 thieves” to turn to stealing, it was necessary to distinguish between different possible personality types.
Bowlby recognised that it was difficult to do this with children whose whole personalities are not yet formed.
However, his overall view was that there were six main personality types in his sample.
What’s the definition of normal in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Children whose characters appear fairly normal and stable.
What’s the definition of depressed in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Children who have been unstable and are now in a more or less depressed state of mind.
What’s the definition of circular in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Unstable children who show alternating depression and over - activity.
What’s the definition of hyperthymic in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Children who tend to be constantly over - active.
What’s the definition of schizoid in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Children who show marked schizoid or schizophrenic symptoms.
What’s the definition of affectionless in regard to the thieves diagnosis?
Children characterised by a lack of normal affection, shame or sense of responsibility.
What are the key points about the affectionless character?
Bowlby found that 14 thieves were classified as ‘affectionless’.
Of these 14 ‘affectionless’ children, 12 had experienced 12 frequent separations from their mothers.
There were 30 non - affectionless ‘thieves’.
3 of them had experienced separations.
In the control group only 2 had experienced separations.
What were the other findings?
Altogether 17 of the ‘thieves’ experienced early separation.
When considering the remaining 27 ‘thieves’, Bowlby reported that 17 had mothers who were:
“Either extremely anxious, irritable or fussy or else were rigid, domineering and oppressive… these are traits that mask unconscious hostility.“
Five of the 27 had fathers who hated them and expressed their hatred openly.
How many affectionless thieves experienced frequent separations before the age of two?
12
(86%)
How many affectionless thieves did not experience frequent separations before the age of two?
2
(14%)
How many of the other thieves experienced frequent separations before the age of two?
5
(17%)
How many of the other thieves did not experience frequent separations before the age of two?
25
(83%)
How many of the control group experienced frequent separations before the age of two?
2
(4%)
How many of the control group did not experience frequent separations before the age of two?
42
(96%)
What are the main conclusions?
Children wouldn’t have become offenders if they hadn’t had experiences that were harmful to healthy development.
Bowlby subscribed to the psychoanalytic view that early experiences are of vital importance in later development.
The particular experience he focused on was the relationship between a mother and child, and the importance this has in emotional development.
Bowlby proposed that damage to the mother - child relationship would affect the development of the superego, leading to a reduced sense of right and wrong.
Juvenile delinquency is undoubtedly the consequence of many and complex factors, such as poverty, bad housing and lack of recreational facilities.
However, this study has placed an emphasis on psychoanalytic factors.
For example:
Early experiences.
What are the key points of the implication for treatment evaluation point?
If the findings of this study are correct, the implication is that treatment should be offered to delinquents, though this process is slow and difficult.
The earlier that a diagnosis is made the better.
A preferable approach is prevention rather than treatment.
The prolonged separation of a mother and her child may on occasion be unavoidable.
What are the key points of the no casual findings evaluation point?
Suggested that prolonged separation caused the emotional problems experienced by many of the ‘thieves’.
However, this variable wasn’t manipulated.
All that’s demonstrated is a relationship between these variables.
There may be other variables that caused the emotional problems.
What are the key points of the biased data evaluation point?
Bowlby produced a record of qualitative data on each of his participants.
This was based on extensive interviews with the children and their families.
There are over 25 pages in the report detailing the case histories of the 44 ‘thieves’.
Such data has the advantage of providing many insights into the events that preceded the children’s problems.
However, the data is limited.
It’s based on the view of one person - a very experienced psychiatrist. His perceptions may have been biased by his own beliefs.
What are the key points of the sample evaluation point?
All 88 children in this study were emotionally disturbed.
Therefore, it may not be appropriate to generalise from this sample to all children.
For example:
There may be delinquents who have no emotional disturbance, and the cause of their delinquency may be more social than emotional.
Bowlby suggests that it would be useful to examine a sample of children appearing in court for stealing in order to determine whether all cases of delinquency have a similar explanation.
What are the key points of the confidentiality and privacy evaluation point?
The report gives their first names and initial letter of their last name.
Their history also provides considerable detail of their lives.
Both make it easy for anyone to identify the individual and their families.
It isn’t clear from the report how much the children and their families were aware that this information would be published.
What are the key points of the valid consent evaluation point?
The children and their families were seen at the clinic in the years 1936-39 whereas the report was published in 1946.
It would’ve been difficult to obtain consent five or more years later.
What did Rutter and Sonuga-Barke (2010) show?
Research has shown that there’s a sensitive period in development.
A lack of emotional care before the age of six months appears to be something that children can recover from.
What did Rutter et al (2010) find?
Those who were adopted later lagged behind a control group of UK children on all measures of physical, cognitive and social development.
