Institutionalisation: Romanian orphan studies

Question 1

what are some strengths of research into institutionalisation

Answer 1

• real world applications
• longitudinal studies

Question 2

how have the findings of roman orphan studies been applied to the real world

Answer 2

• they have been applied to social services by changing the way children are looked after during the adoption process
• before mothers were encouraged to keep their babies for a certain period of time before giving the baby up for adoption and what by the time the baby was adopted the critical period would have passed, making it difficult for them to form secure attachments with their new mother
• most babies are now adopted within the first week of birth and research like the one conducted by Singer has found that adoptive mothers and children are just as securely attached as biological families

Question 3

what is good about longitudinal studies

Answer 3

• they followed and observed the children’s lives over a many years, showing the long-term effects of institutionalisation
• without longitudinal studies, researchers would have concluded effects of institutionalisation to be severely negative and irreversible
• because studies were longitudinal, they were able to show that institutionalisation doesn’t always have negative effects, and that the effects can disappear over time if sufficient time and high-quality care is provided to the child
• therefore the results of these studies are accurate and have a high validity

Question 4

what are some limitations of Romanian orphan studies

Answer 4

• low ecological validity
• individual differences

Question 5

why do Romanian orphan studies have a low ecological validity

Answer 5

• the conditions of care for Romanian orphan are not typical because of the unusual situational variables and harsh political regime during that time period which is not the same in most countries now
• this means the results do not represent all situations where children have been institutionalised or experienced deprivation so they cannot be generalised to other contexts
• this lowers the ecological validity

Question 6

why are individual differences a limitation of institutionalisation

Answer 6

• the theory proposes that all children which experience institutionalisation will experience irreversible negative effects
• research has shown that some children are not as strongly affected by institutionalisation as others, as they received special treatment in the institutions because of things like smiling more than others, which allowed them to cope a lot better
• this shows that individual differences play a role in the effects of institutionalisation and it cannot be concluded that it will always lead to negative consequences