Maternal Deprivation Flashcards
What’s maternal deprivation?
The emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between child and mother/ mother sub
What can you remember from attachment?
-Bowlby proposed continuous care from the mother is essential for normal psychological development and that prolonged separation from this adult causes serious emotional damage.
What’s affectionless psychopathy?
The inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others
This prevents person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.
They can’t appreciate feelings of victims and so lack of remorse for actions.
What did Bowlby argue?
-argued the ability to form meaningful relationships in adulthood was dependent upon the child forming a warm, continuous relationship with mother-figure. The maternal bond was seen as a unique, superior to others and vital for the child’s wellbeing and development.
What does failure to establish the meaningful bond lead to?
-in the first few years means the child will experience damaging, irreversible consequences later in lieu of.
-develop ‘affectionless psychopathy’
-maternally deprived individuals are likely to engage in acts of delinquency and cant close relationships with others.
Bowlby 44 juvenile thieves study
-Bowlby supported his claims for maternal deprivation using his own investigation of 44 juvenile thieves. He interviewed the thieves and their families and found that 14/44 showed personality and behavioural characteristics that could be classified as affectionless psychopathy.
-12 of these 14 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers during infancy (particularly in first 2 years) in non criminal group only 2 had experienced early separation.’
-Bowlby concluded that the effects of maternal deprivation caused affectionless and delinquent behaviour among juvenile thieves.
-natural experiment. IV:naturally occurring (separation from mother)
DV: effect (affectionless psychopathy)
