Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Flashcards
Define monotropy
- The unique attachment bond between an infant and its mother.
- The mother acts as a secure base, which the child uses to explore the world and return to for comfort and safety.
What happens if monotropy is disrupted during the critical period and how long is the ciritical period
-Negative and irreversible consequences, affecting the infant’s social, emotional and intellectual skills.
-The critical period is an infant’s first (two and a half years). However, there is a risk of up to five years.
How can monotropy be disrupted
Through prolonged separation from the mother, this deprivation will result in
What are the Consequences of deprivation (3)
-Delinquency: Due to disrupted social development,
behaviour is often outside acceptable norms, such as
petty crime.
-Affectionless psychopathy: Due to disrupted emotional development, children are unable to show caring behaviour to others or empathy for other people’s feelings and have little guilt for their harmful actions.
-Low IQ: Due to disrupted intellectual development,
cognitive abilities are lower than peers.
Internal working model
As the monotropic relationship with the mother is
the first and most important relationship the infant
has, it forms a template (schema) for future
relationships called an internal working model.
What is the continuity hypothesis
It suggests deprivation is caused by prolonged separations from the mother limits the ability of the infant to form an effective internal working model, leading to unsuccessful childhood and adult relationships and issues with their parenting skills.
Bowlby’s 44 thieves study Procedure (4)
This study examined the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation.
- The sample in this study consisted of 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing.
- All ‘thieves’ were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy: characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims.
- Their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the ‘thieves’ had prolonged early separations from their mothers.
- A control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed young people was set up to see how often maternal separation/deprivation occurred in the children who were not thieves.
Findings Bowlby (1944) (4)
- Found that 14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths.
- Of this 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives.
- In contrast only 5 of the remaining 30 ‘thieves’ had experienced separations.
- Of the control group, only 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations. It was concluded that prolonged early separation/ deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.
What is one consequence of maternal deprivation (Low IQ)
- One way in which maternal deprivation affects children’s development is their intellectual development.
- Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development, characterised by abnormally low IQ
What is another consequence of maternal deprivation (emotions) (4)
- A second major way in which being deprived of a mother figure’s emotional care affects children is in their emotional development.
- Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others.
- This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.
- Affectionless psychopaths cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and so lack remorse for their actions.
Define maternal deprivation (3)
- The emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and his/her mother or mother substitute.
- Bowlby proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development,
- and that prolonged separation from this adult causes serious damage to emotional and intellectual development.
Supports the theory of maternal deprivation (4)
-Bowlby (1944) supported his theory with the Forty-Four Thieves study, 44 child thieves and a control group of 44 emotionally disturbed non-thieves were interviewed to assess affectionless psychopathy and parents were asked about maternal deprivation during the critical period.
- It was found 14 thieves matched the criteria for affectionless psychopathy compared to none of the control group.
- 12 of the thieves had experienced prolonged separation compared to only two of the control group.
- This suggests a link between maternal deprivation and delinquency.
Practical applications (3) P+N
- Bowlby’s work on attachment led to significant positive changes to policies related to child welfare, such as visiting time for mothers in hospitals, the ratio of carers and infants at nursery school and the length of maternity leave.
- While this has improved child welfare it has also impacted the economy as nursery places are now more expensive.
- Social sensitivity should also be considered as the focus on maternity rather than paternity leave may have resulted in an increase in the gender pay gap, with women missing opportunities for development and promotion.
Monotropy may exaggerate the importance of the mother as a primary caregiver. (3)
- This focus on the mother may be
gender biassed (alpha bias), underestimating the role of the father and other attachment figures. - Shaffer’s work shows children quickly move on from one specific attachment, with 87% of infants having multiple attachments at 18 months.
- Other research indicates important roles for the father in early attachment, such as encouraging risk taking, developing socialisation and even taking on the sensitive responsive role when acting as the primary caregiver.
Counter evidence to the 44 thieves (3)
- Not all research has supported Bowlby’s findings. For example, Hilda Lewis (1954) partially replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale, looking at
500 young people. - In her sample a history of early prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.
- This is a problem for the theory of maternal deprivation because it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal deprivation.
