Bowlby’s Theory Of Maternal Deprivation- Topic 7

Question 1

What did Bowlby say about attachment ?

Answer 1

A strong attachment to a mother figure was essential for the psychological, emotional and intellectual development of babies and toddlers and a loss of the existing attachment, ‘maternal deprivation’ could result in serious and long lasting problems- even affectionless psychopathy.

Question 2

What did Bowlby claim about separation?

Answer 2

Separation for an extended period of time and in the absence of substitute care, causes damage and it’s inevitable.
However brief separation doesn’t have any long lasting effects.

Question 3

What is the maternal deprivation hypothesis?

Answer 3

Deprivation from the caregiver during the critical period (30 months) will have harmful effects on a child’s emotional, social, physical and intellectual development.

Question 4

What are the consequences of maternal deprivation?

Answer 4

-intellectual development: if a child was deprived from maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer from retardation characterised by abnormally low IQ.
-emotional development: Bowlby identifies affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for other, preventing the person from developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.

Question 5

What was the study that can be used as evidence for negative impact of maternal deprivation

Answer 5

-Bowlby’s 44 thieves study.
This study examined the links between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation. They used a sample of 44 teenage delinquents. The participants were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy and their family members to establish if there was a prolonged early separation from their mothers. 12/44 had affectionless psychopathy and had experienced prolonged separation in the first two years of life.

Question 6

What are some evaluations of the theory of maternal deprivation?

Answer 6

-the study uses a retrospective self report method. And so there may have been an issue with honesty as the participants and their family may have lied or their memory accuracy could have been distorted over time.
-animal studies show the effects of maternal deprivation. This porvides evidence for Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory since animals are similar to humans in attachment, however humans are more complex than animals as other factors must be considered like mental health disorders.