Bowlby 1944

• Method - case studies, 1936-39, interviewed children and mothers, opportunity sample from London child guidance clinic, emotionally disturbed, 44 children 13 female, 31 male, 5-17 yrs, graded I-IV, I meaning one theft, IV meaning stealing for a long time.
• Method - 27 had average IQ, 15 had high IQ, 2 had low IQ, all thieves compared to control group of 44 emotionally disturbed non thieves of similar age and IQ range and economic status.
• Procedure - done at London guidance clinic where Bowlby worked, on arrival all given mental tests by psychologist, to test intelligence and emotional attitude noted. A social worker interviewed child's mother and recorded preliminary details of early history and home life.
• Procedure - psychologist and social worker reported to Bowlby, Bowlby then interviewed child and mother weekly over 6 months, mothers talked about their problems with social workers.
• Findings - all 44 thieves categorised into 6 character types - 2 normal, stable character, 9 depressed, low mood, 2 circular, hyper activity, 13 hyperthymic, depression then hyperactivity, 4 schizoid, schizophrenia symptoms, 14 affectionless.
• Findings - 23 grade 4 thieves of the 23, 13 were affectionless and 0 affectionless in the control group. 12/14 affectionless thieves experienced early separation from their mum and 5 had openly hostile fathers.
• Conclusions - Bowlby found that factors that inhibit the development of the ability to form relationships affect the likelihood of offending so early childhood experience affect later life.
• Conclusions - juvenile crime is not only attributed to psychological factors but also social and economic, for example poverty, lack of recreational activities and all equally important in the criminals behaviours.
• Conclusions - if parents/carers are aware of the appalling damage that prolonged separation can have on development of child's character so greater effort to avoid them.
• Evaluation - methodology - n - use of interviews - used clinical interviews, children may lie to avoid getting in trouble, mothers lie to justify problems to seem better parent, reduces internal validity, as not legitimate measure of child's character or experiences.
• Evaluate - methodology - p - use of a control group - used a control group, used 44 children similar to thieves with age intelligence and economic status, could directly compare experiences of maternal separation and personality types to get a more valid picture of effects of separation than if he just studied thieves.
• Evaluate - procedure - n - researcher bias - criticised for a risk of researcher bias, Bowlby did all psychiatric assessments himself and diagnosed them, he knew which ppts were thieves, so his expectations influenced his research, undermines internal validity.
• Evaluate - procedures - p - procedures were not artificial - did not involve artificially manipulating the behaviour of the children, about real life circumstances, high external validity, reflect what happens in real life circumstances were children were separated from their mothers.
• Evaluate - findings and conclusions - n - researcher bias - risk of researcher bias, knew which ppts were thieves, expectations may have influenced his research, undermines internal validity.
• Evaluate - findings and conclusions - p - findings have ecological validity - did not involve artificially manipulating the behaviour of children or mothers, gathered data from real life circumstances, high external validity and reflect what happens in real life situations where children are separated from their mothers.
• Evaluate - findings and conclusions - n - low internal validity - social desirability, children may have lied to avoid getting into further trouble, may have lied to justify their problems to be see as better parents, reduces internal validity of findings.
• Evaluate - findings and conclusions - p - alternative evidence to support Bowlby's findings and conclusions - additional research to support his conclusions, children who's mothers return to full time work before they start school the children have slower emotional development with affectionless.
• Evaluate - ethical and social implications - n - ethical issue psychological harm - interviewed by social workers about their child's home life, so mothers had to acknowledge the role they had in the children's emotional and behavioural problem, effects of being separated from their child, likely to cause distress and embarrassment and sadness, children could experience similar distress when asked to recall experiences, father was hostile or memories being separated from their mum. But ethical guidelines not published at the time.
• Evaluate - ethical and social implications - n - social implication workplace - any separation from mother could have damaging consequences, women not wanting to work, dont want to be labelled as 'bad mothers' or discrimmination against women, lead to a negative impact on society, lead to skill gaps in the workplace would damage economy.
• Evaluate - ethical and social implications - p - social implication education - study benefited society, low staff to child ratios, ensure attachments can still be formed, importance of attachment in pshe lessons, to ensure success of forming parental bond in the future, pos implications to reduce possible parent child separations to prevent future deliquent behaviour.
• Evaluate - ethical and social implications - p - social implication health sector - if child hospitalised, parents only allowed restricted visiting times, highlighting negative effect of maternal deprivation, hospitals now have round the clock visiting hours and many parents can stay with the child, pos implications for society, reduce the number of parent child separations and the chances of any negative and social problems such as delinquency.