Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation

• Bowlby (1951) Theory of maternal deprivation

  -Continuous emotional (maternal) care from a mother or mother-substitute is necessary for normal and intellectual development.
• Separation may lead to maternal deprivation.
• Separation is different to maternal deprivation:

  -Separation means the child not being physically in the presence of the primary attachment figure.

  -Deprivation means losing emotional care as a result of the separation.

  Deprivation can be avoided if alternative emotional care is offered.
• If a child is separated from mother (without emotional care) for an extended time during the first 2 1/2 years, then psychological damage is inevitable. There is a continuing risk until the age of 5.
• If a child is deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period this may lead to mental retardation. Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQs in children from institutions compared to fostered children.
• Lack of emotional care may also lead to affectionless psychopathy - the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others. This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.
• --Sources of evidence for maternal deprivation are flawed. The 44 thieves study is flawed because it was open to bias - Bowlby himself assessed both deprivation and psychopathy, knowing what he hoped to find. Also, Goldfarb's (1943) study of war time orphans is flawed because he used traumatised participants who lacked good aftercare. This introduced confounding variables. This means that Bowlby orginally had no solid evidence on which to base his theory of maternal deprivation.
• --Bowlby confused deprivation and privation. Rutter (1981) made the distinction between deprivation (separation from an attachment figure) and privation (failure to form an attachment) - privation has more serious effects. The children Bowlby studied, and others he based his ideas on may have been prived rather than deprived. This means that Bowlby probably exaggerated the effects of deprivation on development.
• --The critical period is more of a sensitive period. Koluchova (1976) conducted a study of twin Czech boys isolated from age 18m (locked in a cupboard). Later they were looked after by two loving adults and appeared to recover fully. Shows that severe deprivation can have good outcomes provided the child has some social interaction and good aftercare. This means that the period identified by Bowlby may be a 'sensitive' one but it cannot be critical.
• --Conflicting evidence. Replications of Bowlby's 44 thieves study (e.g Lewis 1954) have generally failed to reproduce his findings on psychopathy. However, some more recent research (e.g Gao et al. 2010) has found links between poor maternal care and adult psychopathy. This means the link between maternal deprivation and psychopathy are unclear.