Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation Flashcards
What is Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?
Being deprived from an element of a mother’s care in early childhood has serious consequences
What is separation?
Child is not in presence of primary attachment caregiver
What is deprivation?
When the child loses an element of the mother’s care (extended separation)
How long is the critical period and how long is the damage?
Bowlby saw the first 30 months of life as the critical period and if a child was deprived of their mother’s care during this time, damage would be INEVITABLE & LONG-LASTING
What are the 2 ways in which maternal deprivation is harmful?
Intellectual development
Emotional development
How does deprivation affect intellectual development?
Delay intellectual development - Causes lower IQ - Golfarb (1947)
What did Goldfarb (1947) find?
Children who remained in institutions from a young age had much lower IQ than their counterparts that had been fostered
How does deprivation affect emotional development?
Could become affectionless psychopaths which could prevent them from developing normal relationships
What happens when someone is an “affectionless psychopath?
They don’t have the ability to experience guilt or a strong emotion for others
Cannot appreciate the feeling of victims and so lack remorse for their actions
How did Bowlby prove that deprivation harms emotional development?
His 44 Thieves study
What happened in Bowlby’s 44 Thieves Study?
Criminal teenagers accused of stealing
All teenagers checked for signs of affectionless psychopathy and families were interviewed to see if deprivation had occurred
What did Bowlby find in his 44 Thieves study?
30% of the thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths, of which 86% had been deprived of care during the critical period
Compared to emotionally disturbed teens who only 5% had been deprived
What are the strengths of the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis?
Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
Goldfarb (1947)
Animal studies show effects of maternal deprivation - Levy et al (2003)
What did Levy et al (2003) find?
Showed that separating baby rats from their mother for a day had a permanent effect of their social development
What are the weaknesses of the Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis?
Evidence given may be poor
Counter evidence - Lewis (1954)
Effects of maternal deprivation are reversible - Kulochova
Failure to distinguish between deprivation & privation
How is the evidence supporting the maternal deprivation theory poor?
When Bowlby used child growing up in orphanages:
- They are often deprived of all care, not just maternal
44 Thieves Study
- Bowlby interviews the participants and he would have shown bias
What counter evidence did Lewis (1954) find?
He repeated 44 thieves study on a larger scale
Found that early prolonged separation from the mother didn’t predict ciminaloty or difficulty forming close relationships
SUGGEST OTHER FACTORS MAY AFFECT THE OUTCOME OF EARLY MATERNAL DEPRIVATION RATHER THAN SEPARATION ITSELF
How did Kulochova (1976) show that the effects of maternal deprivation are reversible?
Reoported case of twin boys isolated from 18 months to 7 years
They recovered fully after being looked after by 2 loving adults
SHOWS THAT MATERNAL DEPRIVATION IN THE CRITICAL OERIOD DOESN’T ALWAYS LEAD TO PERMANENT DAMAGE
How is there a failure to distinguish between deprivation & privation?
Deprivation = loss of attachment figure after an attachment is formed
Privation = no attachment in the first place
Rutter (1981) suggested that the long term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation was actually caused by privation
What is Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?
A young child should experience a “warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother/substitute in which both can find satisfaction and enjoyment”
