Bowly theory of maternal deprivation Flashcards
Conflicting evidence
One argument against taking maternal deprivation seriously as an explanation for psychopathy comes from attempts to replicate the 44 thieves study that failed to produce similar results. For example, Lewis (1954) looked at 500 young people and found no association between early separation and later criminality or relationship difficulties. So we cannot take Bowlby’s own evidence seriously.
On the other hand, more recent evidence has provided partial support for Bowlby’s ideas about maternal deprivation and psychopathy. Gao et al. (2010) has supported Bowlby by showing that poor quality maternal care was associated with high rates of psychopathy in adults, even when other factors were controlled for. So there is some support, at least for the idea that psychopathy is influenced by maternal care, if not exactly by deprivation.
So, although the evidence base is fairly weak, we should not entirely discount the theory of maternal deprivation.
Flawed evidence
One limitation of teh theory if maternal deprivation is the poor quality of the evidence it is based on. Bowlbys 44 thieves study is flaws because it was bowl by himself who carried out both the family interviews and teh assessments for affection less psychopathy. This left him open to bias because he knew in advance which teenagers he expected to show signs of psychopathy. Other sources of evidence were equally flawed. For example bowls was also influenced by teh findings of Goldfarb reach on the deblopmenyt of confusing variables because the children in goldfarbs study has experienced early trauma and institutional care as well as prolonged separation from their primary caregivers. This mess that bobbles original sources of evidence for maternal deprivation had serious flaws and would not be taken seriously as evidence nowadays.
Counterpoint flawed evidence.
Counterpoint flawed evidence. A new line of research has provided some modest support for the idea that maternal deprivation can have long term effects. Levy et al showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their socials development though not other aspects of development. This means that although bowl by relied on flaws evidence to support the theory of maternal deprivation there are other sources of evidence for his ideas
Deprivation vs privation
Another libation of bolwbys throw of maternal deprivation is his conduction between types of early experience. Rutter drew an important distinction between two types of early negative experience. Deprivation sticky refers to the loss of teh primary attachment figure after attachment has developed. On the other hand privation is the failure to form any attachment in the first olace. This may take place when children are brought up in insistuational care. Rutter poinyted out that the severe long term damage bobbly associated with deprivation is saccutally more likely to be the result of privation. SO the children studied by goldfab may actually have nbeemn priced rather than deprived similarly may of teh children in the 44 thieves study has disrupted early lives and may never have formed string attachments. This means that bobbly may have overestimated teh serious ness of the effectivensss of deprivation in children’s devlopment
Critical verus sensitive periods
A further limitation of teh theory is bowlbys idea of a critical period. FOR BOWBLYS damage was inevitable if a child had not formed an attachment in the first two and a half treats of life. Hence this is a critical period however there is evidence to suggest that in may cases good quality aftercare can prevent most or all of this damage. For example Koluchovba reported the case of teh Czech twins. The twins experience very severe physical and emotional abuse from the age of 18 moths ip until they were seven years old. Although they were severely damaged emotionally nu their experience they received excellent care and by their teens they had recovered fully. This means that lasting harm is not inevitable even in cases of servers privation. The critical period is therefore better seen as a sensitive period.
