| When did Bowlby believe that maternal deprivation would occur? | During the first 2.5 years of development |
| What is the maternal deprivation hypothesis? | Disruption to attachment in that time, the child would develop an internal working model of themselves as unworthy. He believed the effects on emotional development would be permanent and irreversible |
| What else could maternal deprivation lead to? | -Affectionless psychopathy
-Low intelligence
-Juvenile delinquency
-Poor future relationship
-Poor mental health |
| What was the aim of Bowlby's 44 thieves experiment? | To investigate long-term effects of maternal deprivation on people to see whether deliquents have suffered deprivation |
| What type of study was it and what was the sample? | Longitudinal study from 1936-39
88 (5-16) children from the clinic that Bowlby worked at
-44 children were thieves (31 boys and 13 girls)
-44 children were control group, didn't commit crimes, (34 boys and 10 girls) |
| What was the procedure of the experiment? | IQ test conducted by a psychologist - emotional attitudes tested as well
Matched on age and IQ
Children and parents were interviewed, recorded information of child's early life (periods of separation) by psychiatrist (Bowlby), a psychologist and a social worker - they made seperate reports |
| What was the findings of the children in the thief group? | 32% (14/44) of the children were affectionaless psychopaths
86% (12/14) had experienced prolonged separation of more than 6 months from their mothes in the first 2 years of their lifes
5/30 (17%) of theives not classified as affectionless psychopaths had experienced separations |
| What were the findings of the control group? | 2/44 had experienced prolonged seperatations and none were affectionless psychopaths. |
| Conclusion of Bowlby's experiment? | Maternal deprivation in a child's early life caused permanent emotional damage. Conditioned involves: lack of emotional development, characterised by a lack of conern for others, a lack of guilt, inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships |
| A strength of Bowlby's research? | -Significant impact on best practice in institutions, eg: hospitals where infants are likely to experience prolonged separation from caregivers
-Historically visiting children in hospitals was very restricted or not permitted at all.
-Robertson (1952) observed a 2 year old called Laura, hospitalised for 8 days. She struggled to cope with emotional deprivation, demonstrating real distress
-In light of new psychological insight, key changes have occured to provide best quality substitute emotional care int eh absense of their parents to minimise the negative consequences for the child |
| A weakness of Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis? | -Poor quality of evidence that it is based on
-Bowlby's 44 thieves study was flawed because Bowlby was the one who carried out both the interview and assessments of affectionless psychopathy. Let him to be biassed because he knew in advance which teenagers he expected to show signs of psychopathy.
-Other sources of evidence were flawed, Bowlby was influenced of the findings of Glodfarb's reserach of development of deprived children in wartime orphanages. This research had confounding variables as the children had experience prolonged trauma and institutional care as well was prolonged separation from their primary caregivers
-Means that Bowlby's original sources of evidence for maternal deprivation had serious flaws and would not be taken seriously as evidence nowadays |
| A weakness of Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis? | -Lack of consistent support for long-term effects as most attempts to replicate the 44 thieves study failed to produce similar results
-Lewis (1954) looked at 500 young people and found no association between early separation and later psychopathy.
-Barrett (1997) found that securely attached children are more resistant to negative effects of maternal deprivation in compariosn to insecurely attached children.
-Casts doubt on Bowlby's theory as it suggests that other facts, like individual differences and attachment types, may be implicated in the mediation of the consequences of maternal deprivation |
| A weakness of the maternal deprivation hypothesis? | -Crticised for not making the distinction clear between deprivation and privation
-Rutter (1981) drew important distinction between 2 types of early negative experience. Deprivation refers to the loss of the primary attachment figure after the attachment has developed. Privation is the faliure to form any attachment in the first place - may take place when children are brought up in institutional care. Rutter pointed that the long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is more likley to be the results of privation
-So children studied by Goldfarb may have been 'prived' instead of deprived. Similar to the children in 44 thieves study who had disruption in their real lives and may never had formed strong attachments.
-Means that Bowlby might have overestimated the seriousness of the effects of deprivation in children's development. |
