Maternal Deprivation

• Maternal Deprivation


  emotional and intellectual consequences of separation between a child and their mother or carer.

  Bowlby proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development and prolonged separation from adults causes serious damage to emotional + intellectual development
• Critical period


  time within which an attachment must form if it's to form at all
• Separation + Deprivation


  Separation - child isn't in presence of primary attachment figure. only becomes a problem if child becomes deprived.

  Extended separations can lead to deprivation (causes harm)
• Intellectual development


  Bowlby believed if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development characterised by an abnormally low IQ

  Goldfarb found: lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who were fostered, who had a higher standard of emotional care
• Emotional Development


  Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as inability to experience guilt or strong emotions for others.

  prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality

  Affectionless psychopaths can't appreciate the feelings of victims so lack remorse for their actions
• Bowlby's 44 thieves' study


  AIM: examined link between affectionless psychopaths and maternal deprivation

  PROCEDURE: sample consisted of 44 teenagers accused of stealing.

  'thieves' were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy, characterised as lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions + lack of empathy for their victims

  families were also interviewed in order to establish whether 'thieves' had prolonged early separations from their mothers

  control group - non-criminals but emotionally disturbed, to see how often maternal separation/deprivation occurred in children who weren't thieves

  FINDINGS: 14 of 44 could be described as affectionless psychopaths

  12 of 14 experienced prolonged separation from mothers in first 2yrs

  5 of remaining 30 had experienced separations

  control - 2 of 44 experienced long separations

  CONCLUSION: prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy
• Strength - real world application


  Bowlby's study + theory had an enormous impact on post-war thinking about child-rearing and how children were looked after in hospitals

  before Bowlby's research, children were separated from parents when in hospital

  visiting was discourage or forbidden

  Robertson films a 2yr old, Laura, during 8days in hospital. seen was seen to be frequently distressed and begs to go home.

  Bowlby + Robertson's work led to a major social change in way children were cared for in hospital
• Strength - animal studies demonstrated maternal deprivation


  Levy et al showed separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development.

  support the concept of maternal deprivation in rats i.e. long-term effects to social development when separated from their mothers
• Weakness - deprivation vs privation


  Rutter criticised Bowlby's view of deprivation as it didn't make clear whether the child's attachment bond had formed but been broken, or had never formed in first place.

  Rutter argues severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is more likely to be result of privation.

  many in the 44 thieves theory had moved from home to home during their childhood may have never formed attachments in the first place.
• Weakness - counter evidence


  Lewis partially replicated the 44 thieves study on a large scale, looking at 500 young people.

  in her sample, a history of early prolonged separation from mother didn't predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.

  Weakness - Bowlby's maternal deprivation theory suggests other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal deprivation, so Bowlby's theory can't be verified which reduced the study's validity