Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation Flashcards
Define maternal deprivation
Maternal deprivation is the emotional and intellectual consequences of extended separation between a child and mother/mother substitute where a child loses an important aspect of care within the critical period
AO1: Maternal deprivation
According Bowlby continued nurture from a mother or mother substitute within the first 2.5 years of a child life is important for healthy psychological development. If a child has extended separation from mother or mother substitute in the critical period an important aspect of care is lost which could lead to psychological damage which is irreversible and inevitable. The psychological damage could be emotional and intellectual. Intellectual damages includes cognitive impairment such as intellectual delay and abnormally low IQ. Goldfarb found that children who were institutionalised had a lower IQ than those who were fostered. Emotional damage includes affection less psychopathy. This is the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion toward harder making to difficult to form relationships. This is associated with criminality as they lack remorse.
What are the evaluations? (4)
1) RTS Bowlby juvenile
2) Retrospective data
3) Practical applications
4) RTC Lewis
AO3: RTS Bowlby
Research to support Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation comes from comes from Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study. He used an opportunity sample of 44 juvenile thieves to see if they had signs of affectionless psychopathy. They then interviews the juveniles parents to see if they had extended periods of separation in their childhood. They found that those who had affectionless psychopathy were more likely to have had extended periods of separation within the critical period where an important aspect of care is lost. This supports Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation as it shows extend periods of separation in within the critical period can lead to intellectual and emotional consequences such as affectionless psychopathy which increases the validity of the research.
AO3: Retrospective data
However, Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study into researching Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation can be criticised as it uses retrospective data. It requires juvenile thieves parents to remember information from the juveniles childhood so they could have lied to present their parenting in the best possible light or have simple forgotten. This reduces the internal validity of Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study as the support it provides for Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation.
AO3: Practical applications
A strength of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation is that it leads to practical applications. The principles of the theory that extended separation in childhood can lead to psychological damages such as affectionless psychopathy has been used to create change in society. For example hospitals have changed their visiting times to allow parents to stay with their infants over night to reduce potential negative consequences such as affectionless psychopathy. Therefore Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation is an important part of applied psychology increasing the credibility. Furthermore it’s appropriate to suggests this leads to economic implications as it could reduce criminality which saves tax payers money.
AO3: RTS contradict Lewis
Research to contradict Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation comes from Lewis. Lewis replicated Bowlby’s 44 Juvenile thieves study on a larger sample of 500 young people. In her sample she found that extender separation in the critical period did not predict criminality or have difficulty forming relationships. Therefore this contradicts Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Some could argue this is become Bowlby used an opportunity sample of the juvenile thieves and their families so his research could be open to bias which explains the differences between Bowlby’s and Lewis’ research.
