Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation Flashcards
Describe Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis suggests that the continued presence of nurture from a mother or mother substitute is essential for normal psychological development of babies and toddlers, both emotionally and intellectually.
According to Bowlby what is the difference between separation and deprivation?
Separation simply means a child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure. This only becomes an issue for development if the child is deprived. Brief separations, particularly where the child is with a substitute caregiver, are not significant for development but extended separations can lead to deprivation.
According to Bowlby, what is the critical period?
Bowlby saw the first 30 months of life as a critical period for psychological development. If a child is separated from their mother in the absence of suitable substitute care and so deprived of her emotional care for an extended period during this critical period then Bowlby believed psychological damage was in the inevitable.
According to Bowlby, what is there effects of maternal deprivation on development?
Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development, categorised by an abnormally low IQ. Also, the child may develop affectionless psychopathy which is the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others. This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality. Affectionaless psychopaths cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and so lack ]remorse for their actions.
Describe Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
The aim of this study was to examine the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation. The study involved 44 teenagers accused of stealing. All thieves were interviewed for signs of affection and psychopathy categorised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their action and lack of empathy for victims. Their families were also interviewed to establish whether the thieves had prolonged early separation from their mothers. A control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed young people were set up to see how often maternal separation occurred in children who are not thieves. Bowlby found that 14 out of 44 criminal teenagers could be described as affectionless psychopaths. Of the 14, 12 had experience separation from their mothers in the first two years of life. Only 5 of the remaining 30 had experienced separation. Of the control group, only 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations. Bowlby concluded that prolonged early separation caused affectionless psychopathy.
Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation
Not all research supported Bowlby’s findings. Lewis 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 limitation for the theory of maternal deprivation because it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of maternal deprivation. Furthermore, this study was larger than Bowlby’s so its results are more credible, as a result Lewis’s research has high external validity which we can be confident is more reliable.
Bowlby carried out all of the assessments for affectionless psychopathy and the family interviews himself. This is a limitation because the results may have been affected by investigator bias, meaning he may have seeked or encouraged answers that supported his desired conclusion. Furthermore, the children growing up without their mother were also deprived of physical care, this means that the negative effects they experienced could have been due to physical deprivation and not just maternal deprivation, so Bowlby may have over exaggerated the impact of maternal deprivation.
Bifulco studied women who experienced separation from their mothers either by death or temporary separation of more than a year. Bifulco found that 25% later experienced depression or anxiety disorder compared to 15% of the women who had experienced no separation. The mental health problems are greater in those whose loss occurred before 6 years old. This is supporting evidence of Bowlby’s research as it shows separations before 6 years old perhaps during the critical period leads to a higher risk of mental health problems, as Bowlby suggested. Individual differences such as high quality caregiver substitutes may explain why 75% of the women did not have any mental health problems. This supports Bowlby’s theory that having a substitute caregiver during maternal deprivation reduces the effects of their separation. This indicates Bowlby’s research has high internal validity.
Before Bowlby’s research children were separated from their parents when they spent time in a hospital. Visiting was discouraged and even forbidden. As a result of Bowlby’s research it was encouraged that nurses or mothers have lots of contact with child patients, especially if they are really young. Furthermore, Bowlby’s research has encouraged better maternal attachment which is likely to prevent crimes in the future such as stealing, which as a result will help the economy because it may reduce the number of people going to prison. This shows that Bowlby’s research has real life applications and so has high external validity.
