Bowlby's maternal deprivation

• the critical period

  Bowlby saw the first 30 months of life as a critical period for psychological development. If a child is separated from their mother in the absence of substitute care and so deprived for an extended period during this critical period than psychological damage was inevitable.
• effects on intellectual development

  Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development such as having low IQ.
• effects on emotional development

  Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others. This prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality. Affectionless psychopaths don't appreciate the feelings of victims and lack remorse for their actions
• Bowlby's 44 thieves study - procedure

  the sample consisted of 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing. all thieves were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy e.g. lack of empathy. their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the thieves had prolonged early separations from their mothers. a control group of non-criminal but emotionally disturbed people were set up to see how often maternal deprivation occurred in children who weren't thieves
• Bowlby's 44 thieves study - findings

  Bowlby found that 14 out of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths. out of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers. only 5 of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced separations. in the control group only 2 had experienced long separations. it was concluded that early separation caused affectionless psychopathy
• A03 - counter evidence

  • Hilda Lewis replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale, looking at 500 young people
  • in her sample a history of early prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty in forming relationships
  • this is a problem for the theory because it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal deprivation
• A03 - the critical period is a sensitive period

  • later research has shown that damage from separation is not inevitable and in some cases of severe deprivation have had good outcomes provided the child has some social interaction
  • e.g. reported case of twin boys from Czechoslovakia who were isolated at 18 months until they were 7 years old, they were then looked after by two loving adults and recovered fully
• A03 - evidence may be poor

  • Bowlby drew number of sources of evidence for maternal deprivation including studies of children orphaned from WW2, those living in poor conditions and 44 thieves study
  • these are all flawed as evidence, war-orphans were traumatised and often had poor after care therefore these factors might have been the causes of later development difficulties
  • children growing up in poor quality institutions were deprived of many aspects of care not just maternal care
  • 44 thieves study included bias as Bowlby carried out the assessments and interviews knowing what he hoped to find