Effects of institutionalisation

Question 1

Real-life application

Answer 1

A strength of the research into institutionalisation is that studying the Romanian orphans has enhanced our understanding of the effects of institutionalisation. Such results have led to improvements in the way children are cared for in institutions. For example, orphanages and children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child and instead ensure that a much smaller number of people, perhaps one or two people, play a central role for the child. This person is called a key worker. Having a key worker means that children have a chance to develop normal attachments and help avoid disinhibited attachment. This shows that such research has been immensely valuable in
practical terms.

Question 2

The Romanian Orphans were not typical

Answer 2

Although a vast amount of useful data about institutionalisation has come out of the Romanian orphan studies, it is possible that the
conditions were so bad that the results cannot be applied to understanding the impact of better-quality institutional care or indeed any situations where children experience deprivation. For example, Romanian orphanages had particularly poor standards of care, especially when it came to forming any relationship with the children, and extremely low
levels of intellectual stimulation. Therefore, the extreme experiences of privation experienced by the Romanian orphans means that the studies lack generalisation due to the unusual situational variables. This questions the validity of the Romanian orphan studies.- was it the effect of institutionalisation- no only effect of institution in poor institutions

Question 3

Natural Experiments

Answer 3

One of the methodological issues for Rutter’s ERA project is that the
children were not randomly assigned to the three conditions (adopted before the age of 6
months, adopted between 6 months and 2 years, adopted after 2 years). The researcher did not interfere with the adoption process, which means that those children adopted early may have been more sociable, a confounding variable. However, it would not have been possible
to manipulate the independent variable in Rutter’s research as this would involve allocating children to either institutional care or foster care. This would be methodologically better because it removes the confounding variable of which children are chosen by parents; however it raises huge ethical issues. This highlights the importance of ethical consideration
when conducting research on adopted children, due to the possible long term effects of
institutionalisation.