Effects Of Institutionalisation - Attachment

Question 1

Define privation

Answer 1

Where a child has never had an attachment to its mother or caregiver

Question 2

Define deprivation

Answer 2

Where an attachment was once formed but is now broken

Question 3

What did Rutter (1981) claim in relevance to privation ?

Answer 3

The effects of maternal privation are more likely to be serious than the effects of maternal deprivation

Question 4

Who conducted the “case of genie” study ?

Answer 4

Curtiss (1977)

Question 5

What is the “ case of genie” case study ?

Answer 5

• reported the case of a girl who suffered extreme cruelty from her parents and never formed any attachments
• her father kept her strapped to a high chair with a potty in the seat for most of her childhood
• she was beaten if she made any sounds
• didn’t play with toys or other children
• she was discovered when she was 13
• she was physically underdeveloped and could only speak like animal like sounds
• she later learnt some language but her social and intellectual skills never seemed to fully develop

Question 6

Why study institutions such as orphanages ?

Answer 6

• Bowlbys theories of maternal deprivation predicted that institutional care will have permanent and irreversible effects on the psychological well being of the children
• prolonged emotional deprivation can not be manipulated for ethical reasons
• there are very few institutions open today

Question 7

Who conducted the “ a longitudinal study of Romanian orphans “ ?

Answer 7

Rutter et al (2007)

Question 8

What was the procedure of the Romanian orphans study ?

Answer 8

• 165 Romanian orphans were adopted by British parents
• they were split into 4 groups
• each group was assessed at the ages of 4,6,11 and 15
• at the start of the observations over half of the orphans were suffering from severe malnutrition and a low IQ
• showing delayed intellectual development compared to the control group

Question 9

What were the 4 groups that the children were split into ?

Answer 9

Group 1 : 58 children under the age of 6 months
Group 2 : 59 children between the ages of 6-24 months
Group 3 : 48 children over 48 months
Group 4 : British adoptees who were the control group

Question 10

What were the findings of the Romanian orphans study ?

Answer 10

Age 6 - those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment ( overly friendly behaviour towards unknown adults )

Age 11 - 54% of those children who were adopted after 6 months that had shown type D : Disinhibited behaviour, still showed disinhibited attachment

• those adopted before the age of 6 months had caught up with the control group at 4 years

Question 11

What are symptoms of disinhibited attachment ?

Answer 11

• attention seeking
• clinginess
• social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults whether familiar or unfamiliar

Question 12

Why was the age of adoption critical at this stage ?

Answer 12

• those adopted before 6 months showed signs of a secure ‘normal’ attachment
• those older than 6 months displayed disinhibited attachment

Question 13

What were the children’s mean IQs ?

Answer 13

• those adopted before 6 months = 102
• those adopted between 6 months - 2 years = 86
• those adopted after the age of 2 = 77

Question 14

What was the conclusion for the Roman orphanage study ?

Answer 14

• adoption after the first 6 months of life means the child will have longer - term effects of institutionalisation on the child
• recovery is possible by nurturing sensitive care they may later have slower development rather than irreversible damage
• this challenges Bowlbys theory of maternal deprivation as Rutter shows recovery is possible but difficult

Question 15

Who studied early institutional care ?

Answer 15

Hodges and Tizard ( 1989 )

Question 16

What was the method of Hodges and Tizard study ?

Answer 16

• longitudinal study of 65 children who had been placed in a residential nursery before they were 4 months old
• hadn’t had the opportunity to form close attachments with any of their caregivers
• by the age of 4 some of the children had returned to their birth mothers, some had been adopted and some had stayed in nursery

Question 17

What was the results to Hodges and Tizard study ?

Answer 17

• at 16 years old the adopted group had strong family relationships
• compared to a control group of children from a normal home environment they had weaker peer relationships
• those who stayed in the nursery or who returned to their mothers showed poorer relationships with family and peers than those who were adopted

Question 18

What was the conclusion of Hodges and Tizards study ?

Answer 18

Children can recover from early maternal privation if they are in a good quality loving environment although their social development may not be as good as children who have never suffered privation

Question 19

What are some evaluation points in Hodges and tizards study ?

Answer 19

• natural experiment thus it had high ecological validity
• sample was quite small and more than 20 of the children couldn’t be found at the end of the study
• hard to generalise the results
• as many institutionalised kids are underfed and malnourished with a lack of stimulation it could be these factors that influence their behaviour rather than the lack of attachment itself

Question 20

What are the long term effects of institutionalisation that have been suggested from all these studies ?

Answer 20

1. Affectionless psychopathy
2. Anaclitic depression —> involving appetite loss, sleeplessness and impaired social and intellectual development
3. Deprivation dwarfism —> infants are physically underdeveloped due to emotional deprivation
4. Delinquency - minor crimes committed by youths
5. Reduced intelligence - infants don’t develop intellectually as fast as their peers

Question 21

What is deprivation dwarfism ?

Answer 21

• Children from institutions are usually physically small from lack of emotional care
• emotional disturbances may affect the production of growth hormomes

Question 22

What is a case study linked to deprivation dwarfism ?

Answer 22

Gardner (1972) :

• Studied a 8 month old girl who was never cuddled
• she was physically stunted and withdrawn
• with attention from hospital staff she soon returned to normal

Question 23

What are the strengths of the Romanian orphan study ?

Answer 23

• due to the negative effects institutions have the policy changed to benefit children
  for eg. Children’s homes avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each children and instead have one or two KEY WORKERS who play a central role in their emotional care
• fewer extraneous variables than other orphan studies
• Studies before the Romanian orphan study involved children who had experienced loss or trauma before they were institutionalised
• makes it difficult to observe the effects of institutionalisation in isolation - confounding participant variables
• Romanian study had increased internal validity
• allows psychologists to study case & effect which is usually incredibly hard to do with adoption studies as those children being adopted have been removed for neglect or abuse reasons
• this was not the case with the Romanian orphanages

Question 24

What are some limitations of the Romanian orphans study ?

Answer 24

• Hodges and Tizard stated the adverse effects of institutionalisation could be reversed if children were adopted by effective families or had adequate care
• they found children who had been adopted by adequate families often coped better on measures of behavioural and peer relationships than those children returned to their biological families
• children were not randomly allocated to conditions in this study which means the more sociable children could have been adopted first
• lack external validity as the quality of care was so poor in the Romanian orphanages that it cannot be compare to others
• this means the harmful effects seem In the studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care in general
• current lack of adult data on adult development
• the latest data only looks at the children in their early to mid 20s