Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation

• what is maternal deprivation?

  the prolonged loss of emotional care from a mother figure during a child’s critical period.
• intellectual effects of maternal deprivation

  • if children were deprived for too long during critical period, they would suffer mental retardation.
  • mental retardation is characterised by abnormally low IQ.
  • For example, Goldfard found lower IQ in children who remained in institutions than those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional support.
• emotional effects of maternal deprivation

  • affectionless psychopathy
  • preventation of a person developing normal relationships.
  • often associated with criminality
  • those who are affection less psychopaths cant appreciate feelings of victims. they also lack remorse for their actions
• what is affectionless psychopathy

  the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others.
• What did bowlby state maternal deprivation can affect?

  Ongoing maternal deprivation can lead to negative affects on a child’s emotional and intellectual development, which can risk irreversible consequences.
• Research support- 44 thieves aim

  To examine the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation
• 44 thieves method (quasi experiment)

  1. Bowlby used 44 criminal teenagers who were accused of stealing.
  2. interviewed them for signs of affectionless psychopathy. operationalised this by looking at lack of affection, guilt and empathy for their victims.
  3. Families were also interviewed if they had prolonged early separation from their mothers.
  4. Control group of non-crim people who were emotionally disturbed also interviewed to test if they suffered from maternal separation
• 44 thieves findings of separations from mother before 2yrs

  • those who were diagnosed as affectionless thieves had experienced frequent early separations from their mothers. 86% of affectionless thieves experienced frequent separations, compared with the other thieves where only 17% experienced frequent separations.
  • also, almost none of the control group experienced separations. 96% experienced none.
• what do the findings show about maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy

  there is a great link in maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy. if a child is frequently separated from their mother during the critical period, they are likely to be affectionless psychopaths.
• evaluation 1– strength on real life application

  POINT- One strength is his research is its had a significant impact on the best practice in institutions such as hospitals.

  EVIDENCE- Visiting children in hospitals was very restricted historically. A 2-year old girl named Laura was observed after being in hospital for 8 days. She struggled to cope with the emotional deprivation, and showed real distress. Since, changes have been made to provide the best quality emotional care when parents are absent.

  EXPLAIN- This makes the maternal deprivation theory useful in real life context.
• Evaluation 2- contradicting evidence

  POINT- One weakness is there is evidence which counters the theory’s hypothesis

  EVIDENCE- Lewis replicated the 44 thieves study, but with a larger sample of children. He found that early deprivation did not predict a greater likelihood of criminal behaviour

  EXPLAIN- Bowlby’s theory claims that maternal separation leads to negative effects, but this evidence contradicts it. So this research decreases the validity of Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory.