Attachment : Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation Flashcards
(13 cards)
What does Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation propose?
Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation focused on the idea that continuous care from a mother figure is essential for normal psychological development of babies, both emotionally and intelectually
What is meant by maternal deprivation?
Maternal deprivation describes the emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and their mother figure, over extended periods of time in which the child is deprived of emotional care
What did Bowlby believe about maternal deprivation and the critical period?
If a child is separated from their mother and deprived of care for an extended period of time within the critical period, psychological damage was inevitable
What are the effects of maternal deprivation on a child’s intellectual development? Include research
Delayed intellectual development and abnormally low IQ
This can be seen in studies of adoption - eg William Goldfarb found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions for longer, as opposed to those who were fostered and, therefore, experienced more emotional care
Name the researcher who studied the effects of maternal deprivation on childrens’ intellectual development
William Goldfarb
What are the effects of maternal deprivation on a child’s emotional development?
Bowlby identified ‘affectionless psychopathy’ as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others - this prevents a person from developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality
What is meant by an ‘affectionless psychopath’?
The inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others
Outline the aim and procedure of Bowlby’s study into maternal deprivation
Bowlby’s 44 thieves study:
Aim: to investigate the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation
Procedure:
- natural experiment
- studied 44 criminal teenagers who had been accused of stealing
- teenagers interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy (lack of guilt, empathy for victims)
- families interviewed to see whether the teenager had experienced maternal deprivation as a child
- sample was compared to a control group
Why was Bowlby’s study a natural experiment?
The independent variable was whether the child had experienced maternal deprivation or not - not possible to randomly allocate P.s to experimental groups since the IV already existed
Outline the findings of Bowlby’s study
- 14 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths
- 12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 yrs of their lives
- only 5 of the remaining 30 thieves has experienced separations
Bowlby concluded that early maternal deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy
What are the consequences of maternal deprivation
- inability to form future attachments
- affectionless psychopathy
- delinquency (behavioural issues in teenage years)
- problems with cognitive development - low IQ
What is privation and what is a main cause of it? What is the difference between deprivation and privation?
Privation is when a child fails to form any attachments at all
Deprivation is when a child has experienced emotional care before, but it has been taken away so they become deprived of it whereas privation is when a child doesn’t form any attachments in the first place so never experiences any emotional care
Privation is mostly caused by being raised in institutional care
What is a methodological limitation of Bowlby’s 44 thieves study?
Researcher bias : Bowlby carried out both the interviews with the thieves and the interviews with the families himself, so he was likely to be biased as he knew which teenagers were
