Bowlby: Maternal deprivation

Question 1

What is maternal deprivation ?

Answer 1

Emotional and intellectual consequence of prolonged separation between child and primary care-giver. A loss of care.

Question 2

What did Bowlby think about the care from a mother ?

Answer 2

‘continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development’

Question 3

What does the critical period have in relation to maternal deprivation ?

Answer 3

• If separated and without an appropriate substitute caregiver, the infant may be deprived of emotional care.
• Bowlby thought that psychological damage was inevitable after 2 and a half years

Question 4

What are the two impacts of deprivation on development ?

Answer 4

• intellectual
• emotional

Question 5

What is the intellectual deprivation ?

Answer 5

• low IQ
• mental retardation

Question 6

What is the emotional deprivation ?

Answer 6

• affectionless psychopathy

Question 7

What was the aim of Bowlby’s 44 thieves experiment ?

Answer 7

• to examine the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation
• The sample included 44 teenagers accused of stealing

Question 8

What was the method of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study ?

Answer 8

• conducted interviews the the participants and their families
• All thieves were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy
• Characterised by lack of affection, lack of guilt about action, lack of empathy for the victim
• Families interviewed about prolonged separation from the mother

Question 9

What were the findings of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study ?

Answer 9

• 14/44 thieves could be described as affcetionless psychopaths
• out of the 14, 12 experienced separation from heir mother in the first 2 years
• only 5/30 remaining had experienced long periods of seperation

Question 10

What is a strength of Maternal deprivation ?

Answer 10

Strength = Research support
Goldfarth = supported the link between intellectual issues and maternal deprivation. Found those that remained in children homes for longer had a lower IQ

Question 11

What are limitations of maternal deprivation ?

Answer 11

Limitation = the critical period
The evidence to suggest in many cases that good quality parenting and care after separation can prevent most of the long-term damage.
Koluchova - the Czech twin studies. Looked at how twins who suffered long-term abuse for 7 years, after good care were able to reserve the damage and became successful teenagers.

Limitation = Poor quality of evidence
Bowlby conducted the interview himself. This left him open to a bias because he already knew the expected behaviours of these teenagers and the behaviour of psychopathy

Limitation = Lack of internal validity
Rutter said that there are two different early experiences. Privation and deprivation. Bowlby looked into the effects of privation but referred to it as deprivation so therefore didn’t test the correct thing.

Question 12

What is the difference between privation and deprivation ?

Answer 12

Deprivation = occurs when an attachment that’s already been formed has been broken

Privation = the complete absence of something desired or needed