Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

Question 1

Outline the distinction made between separation and deprivation

Answer 1

• separation simply means when the child is away from the caregiver, this only becomes a problem when the child loses a form of the parents’ care.
• If child is left with another caregiver on some occasions then this is not by definition considered deprivation; it only becomes so once this starts to happen frequently

Question 2

What did Bowlby see as the critical period

Answer 2

• First 30 months of life

- If child was deprived of care during this time, psychological harm was inevitable (Bowlby believed)

Question 3

What are one of the effects deprivation can have on development

Answer 3

• Intellectual development, Bowlby believed that if children had been deprived during the first 30 months of life, they would suffer from mental retardation

Question 4

Who provided evidence to show that children deprived of care during the first 30 months of life would suffer retardation, what did they show

Answer 4

• Goldfarb found a lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions, compared to those who were fostered

Question 5

What are one of the effects deprivation can have on development

Answer 5

• emotional development, Bowlby identified emotionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others
• cannot appreciate feelings of victims and so lack remorse for their actions

Question 6

Outline the procedure in Bowlby’s 44 thieves study

Answer 6

• 44 criminal teens accused of stealing
• all were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy
• family was also interviewed to establish whether the thieves had early separations from their mothers
• control group of non-criminals but emotionally disturbed young people was set up to identify how often maternal deprivation/separation occurred in children who were not thieves

Question 7

What were Bowlby’s findings

Answer 7

• 14/44 could be described as affectionless psychopaths
• of this 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers the first two years of life, in contrast only 5 of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced the same
• of the control group on 2 of the 44 had experienced long separations

Question 8

Give a limitaion of Bowlby’s findings

Answer 8

• counter evidence
• Hilda Lewis partially replicated the study on a larger scale, looking at 500 young people
• a history of prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships
• suggests there may be other factors involved

Question 9

What is another limitation of Bowlby’s theory

Answer 9

• Critical period may have actually been more of a sensitive period
• later research has shown that damage is not inevitable, some cases of early maternal deprivation has good outcomes

Question 10

What did Koluchova find

Answer 10

• 2 twins boys from Czechoslovakia who were isolated from the age of 18 months till they were seven years old were taken in and loved by two adults and appeared to recover fully
• cases like this show that the critical period may indeed just be more of a sensitive period