Theory of maternal deprivation

• The theory for maternal deprivation is that attachment is essential for healthy psychological and emotional development. There are negative consequences if attachment is not meet such as low iq, affectionless psychopathy, inability to make attachments later on and delinquency.
• Separation simply means that the child is not with the primary attachment figure. This only becomes a problem if the child becomes deprived of emotional care. If the child is left with a substitute caregiver who can provide some emotional care, however it is not enough for extended periods of time. This can lead to deprivation.
• the critical period for a child is two and a half years for psychological development. If the child is separated from the mother for a long period of time and is deprived of her emotional care then psychological damage was inevitable.
• It can effect intellectual development by having low iq. A second way deprivation can impact a child effects emotional development, this was identified with affectionless psychopathy, the inability to feel guilt towards others. This prevents them from developing normal attachments.
• Bowlby's 44 thieves study-

  The pp were 44 teenage criminals. They were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy and their families were interviewed to establish whether the criminals suffered prolonged early separations. This was compared to a control group of 44 non criminal but emotionally disturbed teenagers. Bowlby found that 14 out of 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopathy and 12 experienced prolonged early separation within the critical period.
• A limitation to this study would be the poor quality of the evidence given in the studies. One of them involved ww2 orphans who were traumatized and often had poor care, therefore these environmental factors could of caused the poor development, simply as they were deprived of care and lived in poor quality institutions. Furthermore, the 44 thieves study was flawed as Bowlby himself did the interviews which made the results bias as he would know what to find. This means that the evidence for maternal deprivation has serious flaws that would be discreditted today.
• Animal studies show evidence of maternal deprivation such as Harlows contact comfort study. Although most psychologists are critical of the theory, an interesting line of research has provided some support for the idea of maternal deprivation can have long lasting effects. Harlows monkeys were deprived of maternal care which led to severe consequences such as neglecting their own young and killing them in some cases as they never had their own emotional development. This illustrates there is evidence for maternal deprivation
• However, children can recover from maternal deprivation. Koluchova reported the case of twin boys from Czechoslovakia who were isolated from the age of 18 months until they were 7 years old, their step mother kept them locked in a cupboard. Subsequently they were looked after by two loving adults giving them the care they need and appeared to recover.