Bowlby - Maternal Deprivation

Question 1

AO1 - Key study

Bowlby (1944) - 44 thieves study

Answer 1

Procedure

Sampled 44 teenagers accused of stealing, and families were interviewed to establish whether prolonged maternal separation had occurred. All the teens were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy

Findings

14 of the 44 were affectionless psychopaths. Of these 14, 12 had experienced prolonged maternal separation in the first 2 years of life.
Only 5 of those not classified as affectionless psychopaths had experienced this separation.

In a control group of 44 non thieves, 42 had not experienced prolonged maternal separation, and 0 showed signs of affectionless psychopathy.

Question 2

AO1- Bowlby’s theory

Necessity of prolonged maternal care

Answer 2

Continuous emotional / maternal care from a mother figure is essential for normal. Emotional/intellectual development

Question 3

AO1- Bowlby’s theory

Maternal separation may lead to maternal deprivation

Answer 3

Bowlby - mother-love in infancy is ‘as important for mental health as vitamins and proteins are for physical health’.

Separation - child is not physically in the presence of the primary attachment figure

Deprivation - loss of emotional care as a result of this separation

Deprivation can be avoided if alternative sources of emotional care are offered - which is why separation will not always cause deprivation

Question 4

A01 - Bowlby’s theory

30 month critical period

Answer 4

Prolonged maternal separation and lack of emotional care within the first 30 months of life will inevitably lead to psychological damage.

Question 5

AO1- Bowlby’s theory

Intellectual development- deprivation lowers IQ

Answer 5

Prolonged deprivation in the critical period will lead to mental retardation and abnormally low IQ.

Goldfarb (1947)

found that children from institutions had lower IQs than those from foster care (alternative emotional care - no deprivation)

Question 6

AO1- Bowlby’s theory

Emotional development- deprivation linked to affectionless psychopathy

Answer 6

Lack of emotional care may lead to affectionless psychopathy- an inability to feel guilt or empathy / strong emotions for others.

Affectionless psychopaths are unable to form normal relationships in later life and are likely to display criminal behaviour.

Question 7

❌AO3 - flaws in evidence sources for maternal deprivation

Answer 7

Goldfarbs 1947 IQ research studied traumatised war-orphans who often had poor after-care. These factors may have affected their intellectual development rather than their maternal separation.

Further, children who were raised in poor quality institutions were deprived of many usual aspects of care, not only maternal care - so these aspects may have affected development rather than their maternal separation.

Bowlby’s affectionless psychopathy assessments and family interviews were all carried out by him. Bowlby knew what he hoped the results to suggest - so researcher bias may have affected the internal validity of these assessments.

Question 8

❌AO3 - counter-evidence for Bowlby’s findings.

Answer 8

Lewis (1954) partial replication of the 44 thieves study - using 500 young people

Found that early prolonged maternal deprivation did not predict criminality or difficulty coming close relationships in the future.

This is a limitation of Bowlby’s theory, as it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal separation.

Question 9

❌AO3- Research negates critical period - suggests more of a sensitive period

Answer 9

Kolchuva (1976)

Case study of Czech twin boys who were isolated and locked in a cage from the age of 18 months.

According to Bowlby these boys should have had psychological damage and issues with intellectual/emotional development

However after being placed in the care of two loving adults, they appeared to recover fully

Shows that the period identified by Bowlby as ‘critical’ must be more of a ‘sensitive’ period

Question 10

✅AO3- animal studies support maternal deprivation

Answer 10

Levy et al (2003)

demonstrated that in rats, as little as a day of maternal deprivation had a permanent effect on the infant’s social development.

However this is an animal study, and due to the high complexity of social behaviour in humans - animal studies such as this cannot be generalised effectively to human behaviour.

Question 11

❌AO3- Bowlby’s failure to distinguish between deprivation and privation

Answer 11

Rutter (1981)

Distinguished between:

Deprivation - loss of primary attachment figure after this attachment had already been developed

Privation - failure to form any attachment at all

Rutter stated that the severe long-term damage that Bowlby associated with deprivation was more likely a result of privation.

Many of the 44 thieves had moved around to a lot of different homes in their childhood - so may have failed to form any attachment at all. In these instances - privation would have caused the affectionless psychopathy rather than deprivation