Bowlby maternal deprivation

• when did Bowlby come up with his maternal deprivation hypothesis?

  1951, before his full monotropic theory of attachment.
• What did Bowlby believe is necessary for normal psychological development?


  Bowlby believed that the continuous presence of nurture from the mother is necessary for normal psychological development.
• Where did Bowlby's hypothesis come from?

  response to short term separation

  -protest

  -despair

  -detachment
• what is separation?


  Not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure
• what is deprivation?


  the emotional and intellectual consequences resulting from prolonged separation from the main attachment figure.
• what is privation?


  the failure to develop any attachment during early life.
• what was Bowlby's study called?

  44 thieves study
• what was the IV of the 44 thieves study?

  Whether maternal deprivation had been experienced or not.
• what was the sample of the 44 thieves study?

  - 88 children

  -44 were juvenile thieves

  -44 had emotional problems and no antisocial behaviour

  -aged 5-16

  -mix of boys and girls
• what was the sampling method in the 44 thieves study?

  Opportunity sampling - they were selected from the clinic where Bowlby worked. He picked suitable children from referrals.
• What were the procedures of the 44 thieves study?

  - social workers interviewed parents for the details of the child's early life and any maternal separation before 2 1/2.

  - Bowlby interviewed the child with the accompanying parent.

  -psychologists tested IQ

  -3 professionals compared notes and read school/court records.

  - Bowlby conducted further interviews with the child and/or parent over the next few months to get an in depth understanding of the child's history and psychological characteristics.

  -participants were rated for affectionless psychopathy.
• What were the findings for those with maternal deprivation from the 44 thieves study?

  19/88 had maternal deprivation

  - 89% of these were thieves

  - 63% of these were affectionless psychopaths

  - 11% of these were neither
• what were the findings for those without maternal deprivation from the 44 thieves study?

  69/88 had no maternal deprivation

  - 39% of these were thieves

  - 3% of these were affectionless psychopaths

  - 61% of these were neither
• what were the 3 dependent variables of the 44 thieves study?

  -social development

  - Intellectual development

  - delinquency
• How was social development operationalised?

  interviews and records from school.
• How was intellectual development operationalised?

  their IQ was tested by psychologists..
• How was delinquency operationalised?

  courts and school records.
• What were the conclusions of the 44 thieves study?

  - maternal deprivation/separation in a child's early life caused permanent emotional damage (affectionless psychopathy.)

  - thieves could steal as they did not care for others.

  - once the attachment bond was broken, the negative effects of it could not be reversed.

  -maternal deprivation caused delinquency and lower IQ.
• What did Bowlby's condition of affectionless psychopathy involve?

  lack of emotion and social development; lack of concern for others; lack of guilt; inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships.
• what type of experiment was the 44 thieves study?

  natural
• Why is it not accurate that Bowlby stated maternal deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy, low IQ and delinquency?


  The data was correlational as the IV was not manipulated, so whilst it shoes relationship, it does not show cause and affect.
• Why is the study being retrospective a limitation?

  the IV occurred naturally before the study took place and much of the data was historical, so it may be less accurate due to forgetting. Reporting is also subject to social desirability.
• Why might have there been researcher bias in the study?

  -Bowlby selected the thieves and non-thieves groups from children at the clinic he worked in.

  - Bowlby took part in interviews so may have ben biases how he interpreted and reported this, to fit his hypothesis.

  - Collaborations and discussions of the data may have been biased.

  - there was a lack of blinding in the study, as Bowlby was involved and knew the aim.
• How does research from Spitz support the study?

  he compare children living in an orphanage which had better conditions to living in a penal institution which has bad conditions, but were with their mother. Within two years, 37% of orphanage children were dead, whereas 5 yrs later all the prison children were still alive. This suggests the presence of the mother is vital to health.
• How does Lewis' partial replication of the study oppose the study?

  in her study of 500 young people, prolonged early separation was not associated with criminality or social difficulties.
• How does Koluchova's case study of Czechoslovakian brothers oppose the study?

  They were kept in a cupboard aged 1 1/2 to 7 years. After they were looked after by two loving adults and appeared to fully recover.

  However, they has care before 1.5 yrs and had each other in the cupboard, so this could explain their outcomes.
• How does Rutter oppose the study?

  Rutter pointed out many of Bowlby's sample has never formed attachments, so Bowlby was looking at affects of privation not deprivation. This means Bowlby may have over estimated effects of deprivation.