Evaluation

• One limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation is the poor quality of the evidence it is based on. For example, Bowlby’s 44 thieves study is flawed because he personally conducted both the family interviews and the assessments for affectionless psychopathy. This introduces the possibility of bias, as Bowlby knew which children had or had not been separated from their mothers, potentially influencing his interview style to fit his hypothesis.
• Furthermore, other sources of evidence Bowlby relied upon, such as Goldfarb’s (1943) study on children raised in poor-quality orphanages during World War II, were also flawed. These children experienced early trauma and deprivation beyond maternal separation, introducing confounding variables. Their developmental difficulties may have resulted from their overall poor conditions rather than maternal deprivation alone.
• This suggests that Bowlby’s evidence lacks scientific rigor, making it difficult to conclude that maternal deprivation is the sole cause of emotional and psychological damage, and thereby questioning the validity of his theory.
• A further limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation is that it overlooks the importance of the father’s role. When developing his theory, Bowlby emphasized the mother as the primary attachment figure, thereby minimizing the father’s significance. However, research by Gottman and Katz (1995) found that children with involved fathers were more popular, less aggressive, and had higher-quality friendships, indicating better emotional reasoning.
• Similarly, Tiffany Field (1978) demonstrated that fathers can serve as the sole primary caregiver, providing high levels of interactional synchrony and reciprocity—key interactions that foster attachment. This challenges Bowlby’s assumption by showing that fathers can play a critical role in a child’s emotional development. Consequently, this is a limitation of the theory, as it suggests that a child deprived of their mother may not necessarily suffer the damage Bowlby proposed if they

  have an involved father.
• A limitation of Bowlby’s theory is his concept of a critical period. Bowlby suggested that if a child did not form an attachment within the first two and a half years, the resulting damage would be inevitable and irreversible. However, evidence suggests that good-quality aftercare can mitigate most or all of this damage.
• For example, Koluchova (1976) reported on the case of the Czech twins, who suffered severe physical and emotional abuse from 18 months to 7 years old. Despite this, after being fostered into a loving family and receiving exceptional care, the twins fully recovered by adolescence. This demonstrates that lasting harm is not inevitable, even in cases of severe privation, suggesting that the ‘critical period’ is more accurately described as a ‘sensitive period.’
• A limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation is his concept of a critical period. Rutter (1981) distinguished between different types of negative experiences, emphasizing that deprivation refers to the loss of the primary attachment figure after an attachment has formed, whereas privation is the failure to form any attachment in the first place. Rutter argued that Bowlby did not adequately differentiate between separation from an attachment figure, the loss of an attachment figure, and privation.
• He suggested that long-term emotional development issues are more often the result of privation rather than deprivation. This implies that Bowlby may have incorrectly classified children as deprived, thereby questioning the validity of his work.