BOWLBY’S MATERNAL DEPRIVATION

Question 1

Maternal deprivation

Answer 1

• The emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and his / her mother or mother substitute .

Question 2

Continuous emotional

Answer 2

• (maternal) care from a mother of mother-substitute is necessary for normal emotional and intellectual development.

Question 3

seperation

Answer 3

• means the child not being physically in the presensce of the primary attachment figure.

Question 4

Deprivation

Answer 4

• means losing emotional care as a result of the separation.
• Deprivation can be avoided if alternative emotional care is offered

Question 5

Critical period of 2 & a half years

Answer 5

• The time within which an attachment must form if it is to form at all, if not psychological damage is inevitable

Question 6

Affectionless psychopathy

Answer 6

• A behaviour disorder in which the individual has no ability to experience shame or guilt. This means that they may find it easier to commit crimes

Question 7

what effects does maternal deprivation have on intellectual development?

Answer 7

• believed children deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period would experience delayed intellectual development shown through abnormally low iq goldfarb

Question 8

what was bowlby’s 44 thieves aim?

Answer 8

• to see if early separation from the primary caregiver was associated with behavioural disorders
• applied the behaviour disorder affectionless psychopathy in this study

Question 9

what was bowlby’s 44 thieves method?

Answer 9

• teenagers referred to a clinic in london were examined
• 44 of the children were criminals and 44 non-criminals and used as a control
• bowlby interviewed the children and their families to create a record of early life experiences

Question 10

what was bowlby’s 44 thieves results?

Answer 10

• identified 14/44 thieves as affectionless psychopaths
• 12 of the 14 had experienced early and prolonged deprivation
• only 5 of the other thieves and 2 of the control group had experienced such deprivation

Question 11

what was bowlby’s 44 thieves conclusion?

Answer 11

• the maternal deprivation appears to lead to affectionless psychopathy and antisocial behaviour

Question 12

• One limitation of Bowbly’s theory of maternal deprivation is that it contains researcher bias.

Answer 12

• For example, Bowbly was particularly affected by his own experience (lack of attachment to his mother). He designed and conducted the experiment and was responsible for diagnosing AP and knew which participants were the 44 thieves, and which were the control group.
• This suggests he may have overlooked certain issues to fit his aim.
• Furthermore, the study includes Bowlby’s subjective interpretation which means there is high risk of research bias as he may have influenced the findings.
• Additionally, he used retrospective data, he asked participants to look back and recall the separations. Memories are prone to being forgotten / distorted with time- thus his findings lack validity as he based it off of inaccurate data/findings.

Question 13

One limitation of Bowbly’s theory of maternal deprivation is that there is opposing research.

Answer 13

• For example, Goldfarb studied war orphans who often had poor aftercare. Lewis replicated the 44 thieves’ study on a larger scale (500 people).
• He found that early prolonged maternal separation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.
• This suggests that maternal deprivation is not the cause of criminality or poor relationships, it’s the poor aftercare. This is a disadvantage as it casts doubt on the theory.
• However, there is support for Bowlby’s work for animals which shows that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one, regardless of which dispensed milk.
• This shows that having a primary caregiver is a key factor in forming attachments

Question 14

what is a limitation - failed to replicate

Answer 14

• suggests other factors may be involved.
• barrett found securely attached children are more resistant to the negative effects of maternal deprivation compared to insecurely attached children.

Question 15

opposing reserach / Bowlby confused deprivation and privation

Answer 15

• Koluchova conducted a case study of twin boys isolated from the age of 18 months.
• They were locked in a cupboard. Later they were looked after by 2 loving adults and appeared to recover fully.
• This highlights that when provided with appropriate aftercare, the negative impacts of maternal deprivation can be reversed.
• rutter made the distinction between deprivation and privation - privation has more serious effects
• the children bowlby studied may have been prived rather than deprived
• means bowlby extaggered the effects of deprivation on development.