Maternal Deprivation - Bowlby's theory

Question 1

define attachment

Answer 1

a close two-way bond between 2 individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.

Question 2

define maternal deprivation

Answer 2

The emotional and intellecutal consequenses of seperation between a child and their mother or mother substitute.
Bowlby proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development, and that prolonged seperation from this adult causes serious damage to emotional and intellectual development.

Question 3

What did Goldfarb 1947 find about the effects of institutionalisation on intellectual development

Answer 3

• He found lower IQs in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care

Question 4

What did Goldfarb 1947 find about the effects of institutionalisation on emotional development

Answer 4

• Being deprived of a mother figure’s emotional care affects children in their emotional development, limited their ability to develop normal relationships
• lacked remorse for their actions

Question 5

define deprivation

Answer 5

when the child is deprived of either their primary caregiver as a whole or elements of their emotional care, which leads to developmental issues with the child. They have had a primary caregiver but this has been interrupted, permanently.

Question 6

define privation

Answer 6

is different from deprivation in that the infant never has a primary caregiver figure, and so never even gets close to forming an attachment.

Question 7

What was bowly’s theory of maternal depriavtion

Answer 7

If an attachment is disrupted or not formed with a mother figure (who provides adequate care) in the first 30 months of life then it is too late and the child will possibly never form any attachments at all
Bowlby believed psychological damage was inevitable past this point, and he also claimed there was a risk up until the age of 5

Question 8

What did Bowly say a consequence of deprivation

Answer 8

Delayed emotional development: Bowlby claimed that children who had maternal deprivation could not experience guilt or strong emotion is known as affectionless psychopathy

Question 9

Define Affectionless psychopath

Answer 9

Affectionless psychopaths lack any remorse for their actions, and as the condition is untreatable, it can have serious consequences for those around the sufferer

Question 10

What was the aim of Bowlby’s 44 theives study

Answer 10

To examine the links between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy

Question 11

What is teh method of the 44 ttheives study

Answer 11

• a sample of 44 participants, consisting of teenage criminals accused of stealing.
• Participants were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy.
• Bowlby also interviewed the participant’s families to see if there was prolonged early separation (deprivation) from their mothers/ mother figure.
• There was a control group of 44 non-criminal teenagers who had emotional problems were also assessed to see how maternal deprivation affected the children who were not thieves

Question 12

What were the results of the 44 theives study

Answer 12

• What were the results of Bowlb’y 44 thieves study 14 of the thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths
• 12 of the 14 had been affected by prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives
• Only 2 in the non-criminal group were subjected to prolonged separation
• None of the control group were diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths

Question 13

what can we conclude from the 44 thieves study

Answer 13

It suggests that affectionless psychopathy and thieving behaviour are linked to the periods of separation they experienced from their mother/mother figure in early life

Question 14

weakness - method - inter

Evaluate the 44 theives study

Answer 14

A weakness is researcher bias, Bowlby carried out the interviews and research himself, this is a weakness because he knew what he wanted from the study and therefore could have consiously or unconciously led skewed the results this means that we cannot trust the accuracy of the results

Question 15

method - control

Evaluate the 44 theives study

Answer 15

A weakness of the experiment is that it has no control group that represents ‘typical’ teenagers of no-criminals who had experienced separation, this is a weakness because we cannot compare the results and tell if separation or criminality caused the affectionless psychopathy this means that we cannot be sure the separation caused the psychopathy as Bowlby concluded.

Question 16

Evaluate the 44 theives study

Answer 16

A weakness of the study is that only 14 out of the 44 thieves exihbited signs of affectionless psychopathy. This is a weakness because it is a very low number which implies that there are external factors that are impacting it. This means that the results are limited in application.

Question 17

counter evidence

Evaluate the 44 theives study

Answer 17

Lewis 1954 found no association between separation and psychopathy in the 500 young people she studied. Her research showed that prolonged seperation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships

Question 18

research - animal

Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

Answer 18

is supported by Harlow’s (1958) research with monkeys. He showed that monkeys reared in isolation from their mother suffered emotional and social problems in older age. The monkey’s never formed an attachment (privation) and as such grew up to be aggressive and had problems interacting with other monkeys.

Question 19

weakness - seperation types

Evaluate Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

Answer 19

Critics such as Rutter have also accused Bowlby of not distinguishing between deprivation and privation – the complete lack of an attachment bond, rather than its loss. Rutter stresses that the quality of the attachment bond is the most important factor, rather than just deprivation in the critical period.