bowlby's maternal deprivation Flashcards
what did Bowlby propose is essential for development?
- continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development
what is deprivation?
the loss of emotional care, that is usually provided by the primary caregiver
what did Bowlby say about the consequences of maternal deprivation?
if deprivation of emotional care is for an extended period of time during the critical period, then effects are irreversible
how long did Bowlby say the critical period is?
up to 2 years
what are the consequences of maternal deprivation?
- an inability to form attachments in the future (see the Internal Working Model)
- affectionless psychopathy (being unable to feel remorse)
- delinquency (behavioural problems in the child’s teenage years)
- problems with cognitive (brain) development
when can maternal deprivation not have an impact on development?
if there is a substitute mother available in the sensitive period (5 years)
how did Bowlby research maternal deprivation?
44 thieves study
outline the 44 thieves procedure
- Bowlby studied the case histories of his patients in the Child guidance clinic where he worked.the children in the clinic were emotionally maladjusted.
- he studied 88 children (44 had been caught stealing, the other 44 were a control group).
- the ‘thieves’ were interviewed for affectionless psychopathy (lacking emotions of affection, shame, responsibility)
- their families were interviewed to see if the ‘thieves’ had prolonged separation at an early age from their mothers.
outline the 44 thieves findings
- 14/44 of the thieves were described having affectionless psychopathy.
- of this 14, 12 had prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives.
- 5 of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced prolonged separation.
- in the control group only 2/44 had experienced prolonged separation.
It was concluded that prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.
evaluation: methodological limitations
ID: Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study suffers from several methodological limitations
Q: this means that, due to the way the study was carried out, findings may not be reliable
EX: for example, one of
these includes researcher bias - Bowlby was aware of what he wanted to find and so may have phrased the interview questions in a way which influenced the respondents to reply in a certain way i.e. leading questions. secondly, Bowlby also based his theory of maternal deprivation from interviews collected from war-orphans. this does not control for the confounding variable of poor quality care in orphanages or post-traumatic stress disorder, which may have had a larger influence on the children’s development rather than simply maternal deprivation.
AN: therefore, Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis may lack internal validity
evaluation: research support (Levy) + ELAB: animal study
ID: there is research support from animal studies
Q: this comes from Levy, who concluded that maternal deprivation can have long-term effects
EX: for example, Levy showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day, had a permanent effect on their social development
AN: therefore, this supports Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory
ELAB: however, the disadvantage with animal studies is the problem of generalisability. drawing conclusions about human behaviour from observing animals might be invalid or reductionist
evaluation: contradicting research (Lewis)
ID: however, there is contradicting evidence for maternal deprivation
Q: Hilda Lewis partially replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale, looking at 500 young people
EX: for example, in her sample, a history of prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships
AN: therefore, research against Bowlby’s theory suggests that maternal deprivation does not always predict criminality or difficulty forming future relationships, reducing reliability of his findings
