AO3

• Bowbly conducted his 44 juvenile thieves study. He found that out of 44 thieves, 14 displayed signs of affectionless psychopathy and 12 of these had suffered from maternal deprivation during the critical period of attachment formation i.e. the first 30 months of life. This was compared to only 5 affectionless psychopaths in the remaining 30 thieves. Therefore, on this basis, Bowlby believed that early maternal deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy and consequently, criminality!
• Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves study suffers from several methodological limitations. One of these includes researcher bias - Bowlby was aware of what he wanted to find and so may have phrased the interview questions in a way which influenced the respondents to reply in a certain way i.e. leading questions. Secondly, Bowlby also based his theory of maternal deprivation from interviews collected from war-orphans. This may have had a larger influence on the children’s development rather than simply maternal deprivation
• Bowlby's Maternal Deprivation theory is supported by Harlow's (1958) research with monkeys. He showed that monkeys reared in isolation from their mother suffered emotional and social problems in older age. The monkey's never formed an attachment (privation) and as such grew up to be aggressive and had problems interacting with other monkeys.
• Critics such as Rutter have also accused Bowlby of not distinguishing between deprivation and privation – the complete lack of an attachment bond, rather than its loss. Rutter stresses that the quality of the attachment bond is the most important factor, rather than just deprivation in the critical period
• • Bowlby's Maternal Deprivation theory is supported by Harlow's (1958) research with monkeys. He showed that monkeys reared in isolation from their mother suffered emotional and social problems in older age. The monkey's never formed an attachment (privation) and as such grew up to be aggressive and had problems interacting with other monkeys.