Maternal deprivation Flashcards
What is separation
Separation means the child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure
What is deprivation
deprivation refers to the loss or lack of a close, nurturing relationship with a primary caregiver during a critical period of emotional development, typically in early childhood
What is privation
privation refers to a situation where a child does not form any attachment bond at all, usually because of a complete lack of a consistent
What is the critical period and how is it relevant to the loss of maternal figure?
The critical period is 2 and a half years so Bowlby said if a child is separated from their mother in the absence of suitable substitute care and so deprived of her emotional care for an extended duration during this critical period then psychological damage was inevitable.
What did Bowlby believe the 2 consequences of deprivation would be on development
Intellectual development impacts- Bowlby believed that if children were deprived maternal care for too long during the critical period they would experience delayed intellectual adoption.
Emotional development- Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards each other
What did Goldfarb find
Found that lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care
What is affectionless psychopathy
the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards each other- struggle to form attachments later in life
What was the aim of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
examine the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation
What was the procedure of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
The sample in this study consisted of 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing.
All ‘thieves’ were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy: characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims. Their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the ‘thieves’ had prolonged early separations from their mothers. The sample was compared to a control group of 44 non-criminal but emotionally-disturbed young people.
What were the findings of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study
Bowlby (1944) found that 14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives. In contrast only five of the remaining 30 ‘thieves’ had experienced separations. Only two participants in the control group of 44 had experienced long separations.
AO3 of Maternal Deprivation
AO3- Socially sensitive- hints that if children are deprived of emotional care then they are more likely to become a criminal- deterministic as Czech twins did not receive emotional care during critical period but turned out fine(Ryan might still form good attachments)
AO3-
Privation with an added DE- Rutter claimed Bowlby muddled concepts together when talking about deprivation. Instead, he proposed deprivation in the loss of an attachment figure after its development. Whereas privation is the failure to form at all. He went on to say the damage Bowlby talked about from deprivation was actually more reminiscent of the damage caused by privation(therefore hard to establish which one Ryan is)- Bowlby’s theory lacks credibility and validity
AO3- Lewis New evidence on MD- Opposition has been demonstrated for MDH. A partial replication of the 44 thieves using 500 young people- larger sample size so potential more generalisable . Found early prolonged separation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships(so MDH may not be the reason Ryan has been in trouble with the police). This poses a problem for the theory as it suggests other factors may affect maternal deprivation outcomes. The 44 thieves study had additional flaws including bias due to Bowlby carrying out the assessments. In addition, interviews with family members may have lacked validity due to their retrospective nature(looking back into past for ideas)- social desirability bias- may have only recorded evidence that support his theory(suggests flawed evidence basis then good news for Ryan)
