44 Thieves study

• 44 Thieves aim:

  To find out if prolonged emotional deprivation would have long term consequences on emotional development.
• 44 Thieves procedure:

  • analysed the case studies of a number of children
  • suggested that the 44 child thieves lacked emotional responses (affectionless psychopathy) - they could steal and it didnt matter
• 44 Thieves findings:

  • those Bowlby diagnosed with affectionless psychopathy had experienced frequent seperation from their mothers
  • almost none of the control group had experienced any
• 44 Thieves conclusion:

  Early seperation is linked to affectionless psychopathy and the lack of continuous care may cause emotional maladjustment.