Bowlby theory of maternal deprivation Flashcards
What is maternal deprivation?
Emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and mother be proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential and separation can cause serious damage to emotional and intellectual development.
Explain separation versus deprivation?
Separation means child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure. This is only a problem if child becomes deprived of emotional care, brief separation particularly when the child is with a substitute caregiver who can provide emotional care are not significant for development but extended separation is can lead to deprivation which causes harm
when is the critical period?
Critical from 2 1/2 years but can continuing risk up to the age of five.
Explain the effects on development from maternal deprivation?
**Intellectual development **– if children were deprived of maternal care for too long they’d experience delay in development and cause low IQ. This is demonstrated in studies of adoption Goldfarb found lower IQ children who remained institutions opposed to those who are fostered.
Emotional care - emotional care affects a child for example this prevents a person developing fulfilling relationships and it’s associated with criminal affection. Psychopaths cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and lack remorse for the actions..
what is the procedure of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
44 criminal teenagers were accused of stealing. They were interviewed for signs of affection psychopathy and categories as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and a lack of empathy for the victims. The families were also interviewed to ask about if there was early separation from their mothers, the sample was compared to a control group of 44 non-criminals.
What are the findings of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
14 of the 44 thieves are described affectionless psychopaths and 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives. Only five of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced separations and only two of the 44 in the control group had experienced long separation. Bowlby concluded that prolonged early separation caused perfectionist psychopathy.
What is one limitation of the theory of maternal deprivation?
The poor quality of evidence it’s based on. Bowlby Carried out with the family interviews and assessment of affection psychopathy, this left him to open bias because he knew in advance what the teenagers expect to show signs of .the sources of evidence were equally flawed it was influenced by the findings of goldfarbs research. this study had problems of confounding variables because the children in Goldfarbs study had experienced early trauma and institutional care as well as prolong separation from their primary givers, this means it would not be taken seriously nowadays.
Explain a further limitation of Bowlby’s idea of the critical period?
He said if a child had not formed an attachment in the first 2 1/2 years of life there was damage however there is evidence to suggest in many cases good quality after-care can prevent most of all of this damage. for example the Czech twins experienced severe physical and emotional abuse from 18 months up to 7. however after they received excellent care in their teens and fully recovered this means that critical period is therefore seen as a sensitive Period.
