Bowlby's Mat Dep Flashcards
Maternal Deprivation
Emotional and intellectual consequences of extended separation between a child and his/her mother and a child loses an aspect of care within a critical period
Theory
Continued nurture from a mother within 1st 2.5 year of life (critical period) is important for healthy psychological development.
If a child has extended periods of separations from mother within critical period where an aspect of care is lost , psychological damage is inevitable and irreversible.
Intellectual damage
Cognitive impairment such as intellectual delay / abnormally low IQ
Goldfarb found lower IQ in children who in institutions compare to those in foster care.
Emotional Damage
Affectionless psychopathy - inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others.
This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality. `
P: RTS Bowlby
E: Interviewed 44 juvenile thevies to see signs of affectionless psychopathy and their mothers to see if there were extended separation where aspect of care is lost.
E: Found those who had affectionless psychopathy were likely to have experience long separation.
L: Supporting Bowlby’s Mat Dep as it shows prolonged separation in childhood can lead to negative consequences.
P : Weakness Retrospective data from Bowlby’s juvenile thieves
E: Relies on memory of juvenile thieves’ parents to recall the periods of separation in childhood.
E: Could have lied about this info to present themselves better or simply forgotten.
L: Reduces internal validity of Bowlby’s thieves study and weakens the support for bowlby’s mat dep theory.
P: RTC Lewis
E: she replicated Bowlby’s thieves with 500 young people.
E: in her sample a history of early prolonged separation from the mother didn’t predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationship.
L: this reduces internal validity of Bowlby’s theory.
