AO3 - Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

• Bowlby (1944) - 44 juvenile thieves and Goldfarb (1955) - research support


  Bowlby's (1944) study on 44 juvenile thieves found that those who experienced early maternal deprivation were more likely to develop affectionless psychopathy. Additionally, Goldfarb (1955) also found that children raised in institutions had lower IQs compared to children that were fostered and therefore had a higher standard of emotional care.
• Lewis (1954) - contradictory evidence of maternal deprivation


  Lewis (1954) replicated Bowlby's 44 thieves study with a larger sample of 500 people. However, they found no association between early separation and later criminal behaviour or difficulty forming close relationships.
• Robertson (1952) - research support for the effects of maternal deprivation


  Before Bowlby's research, it was common for children to be separated from their parents during hospital stays, with visiting often discouraged. Robertson (1952) conducted observational studies on the effects of this separation, documenting cases like Laura, a two-year-old girl hospitalised for 8 days. During her stay, she became increasingly distressed and frequently begged to go home.
• Rutter (1976) - consequences of maternal deprivation may not be permanent


  Rutter (1976) argued that the negative effects Bowlby attributed to deprivation were actually the result of privation - where a child never forms an attachment in the first place. Rutter's research showed that children who had formed attachments but later lost them (deprivation) tended to recover better than those who never formed any attachment at all (privation).
• Can have detrimental consequences for society's ideas of gender roles


  They theory's emphasis on maternal care suggested that mothers should stay at home to care for their children, reinforcing traditional gender roles. This perspective has wider social consequences such as influencing policies that discourage fathers from taking on caregiving roles.
• Contradictory evidence for the critical period


  While Bowlby claimed that if attachment did not form within the first 2-3 years, it would be impossible to recover, later research, such as Rutter et al.'s Romanian orphan studies, demonstrated that children adopted after this period could still develop healthy attachments, albeit with some difficulties. This suggests a more gradual, 'sensitive period' rather than a rigid 'critical period'.