Maternal deprivation hypothesis

• What is maternal deprivation?

  Separation between child and mother during the critical period that disrupts the formation of a healthy attachment
• Emotional effects of maternal deprivation?

  Lack of iwm and affectionless psychopathy, delinquency
• Lack of iwm

  Does not attach to primary caregiver-> fail to dev a healthy template -> negatively effects social development
• Affectionless psychopathy


  Less likely to feel guilt or shame when doing something wrong
• Delinquency

  Increased rates of those maternally deprived, misbehaving and committing minor crimes at a young age
• Mental retardation

  Deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period suffer from mental retardation -> abnormally low IQ
• Who said that children who remained in institutions instead of being adopted and forming an attachment with a mother figure had a lower IQ due to lower standard of emotional care?

  Goldfarb
• Procedure of 44 thieves study


  Info provided by a Child Guidance Clinic, analyses children diagnosed of maladjusted. 44 of them had been caught stealing .

  14 did not show any shame or responsibility-affectionless theives
• Findings of 44 thieves

  12 out of the 14 affectionless thieves experienced maternal separation. 5 out of 30 non affectionless psychopaths experienced maternal
• Conclusion of 44 theives


  This led to the maternal deprivation hypothesis where md leads to long lasting detrimental effects on emotional intelligence
• What did Bifulco find?


  Study on women who had maternal separation. 25% had anxiety or depression in later life. Compared to 15% who had no separation. Mental health problems were greater in women whose loss occurred before the age of 6. The closer to the CP ,the more detrimental the effects
• Who found refuting evidence against md theory

  Lewis - partly replicated with 500 people. Maternal separation did not lead to difficulty forming relationships or criminality.

  she suggests the effects are not consistent with everyone. Other factors can mediate the impact of MD on delinquency, levels of criminality and relationships in later life other than MD
• How do the koluchova twins refute maternal deprivation

  Isolated from 18 months to 7 years in a cellar. Given care by two loving adults and recovered fully, formed own loving families and had healthy romantic relationships. Effects are reversible when given high quality emotional care which can negate the negative effects of MD.

  Leading to the formation of functional emotional bonds.
• Over emphasised on the role of monotropic attachments

  Schaffer and Emerson, most infants have a specific attachment by 10 months but 30% also had multiple attachments .

  Ignores how other attachments can compensate for this during the CP. Multiple attachments may be able to provide adequate emotional care and stimulation that is needed for a normal dev