bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis Flashcards
what is bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?
an explanation of the consequences of disrupting attachment bonds that sees serious, permanent damage to children’s development as inevitable
what are the three ways that disruptions can occur?
-short term separation
-long term deprivation
-privation
what is short term separation?
brief, temporary separations from attachment figures (eg attending day care)
-bowlby described distress caused by short term separation in terms of the PDD model
what is the PDD model?
-protest (immediate reaction, crying, screaming etc, outward direct expression of the Childs anger, fear and confusion)
-despair (calmer more apathetic behaviour, anger and fear still felt inwardly, child comforts itself, eg thumb-sucking)
-detachment (child responds to people again, treats everyone warily, reject caregiver upon return as a sign of anger)
research on short-term separation
-Douglas 1975 - separations for less than a week for children below 4y were correlated to behavioural difficulties
evaluate short term separation
-robertson and robertson 1971 - took children facing STS into their own home, providing an alternate attachment and normal home routine , found this prevented severe psych damage, suggesting negative outcomes aren’t irreversible
-much research relating STS to negative outcomes is correlational, doesn’t show causalty
-kagan 1978 - no direct causal link between separation and later emotional and behavioural difficulties
-barrett 1997 - individual differences in reactions to STS are important, eg securely attached cope better
what is long term deprivation?
-lengthy or permanent separation from attachment figures (usually through divorce)
-around 40% of marriages in UK end in divorce, after 2-3 years, 50% are no longer living with their children
-can also include death and imprisonment
research on long term deprivation
-schaffer 1996 - all children are negatively effected by divorce in the short term
-hetherington & Stanley-hagan 1999 - only about 25% of children experience long-term adjustment problems, most are able to adapt
evaluate long term deprivation
-seems logical that LTD has a more negative effect than STS, research supports this idea
-richards - separation through different scenarios have different consequences (divorce leads to anger and stress, death causes depression)
-demo & Acock - children’s reactions to divorce vary greatly, some develop better attachments with their parents, maybe due to the removal of the negative reinforcement of the marital conflict
-research has allowed psychologists to develop strategies to help children cope with divorce
what is privation?
-children who have never formed an attachment bond
-more likely than deprivation to cause permanent damage (although research results are contradictory)
-generally researched through case studies (bcs cases are rare)
research on privation
-freud & dann 1951 - 6 kids from a nazi camp (orphaned at a few months old) taken at age 3/4 to the bulldog bank centre. had little language and were hostile to adults, refused to be separated from each other, gradually became attached to carers, those that were traced recovered
evaluate privation
-close attachment the bulldog bank children had to each other could be why they recovered (which is why genie didn’t recover)(altho bulldog bank kids would have disrupted attachment when separated, which they didn’t)
-case studies study extreme instances
-case studies are dependant on retrospective memories (can be incorrect/selective)
-bowlby’s view of the negative effects of maternal deprivation seem overstated (some good recoveries)
