Maternal deprivation

Cards (7)

  • What is the theory of maternal deprivation?
    Bowlby propsed that attachment is essential for healthy psychlogical and emotional development, and without it there will be negative consequences.
  • What is disruption/seperation, deprivation, and privation.
    Disruption of attachment is when the child is not in the presence of the primary caregiver, when only short term it has no significant developmental impacts, when they are separated for a prolonged period of time it is called deprivation.

    Privation is when the infant has never had a primary caregiver so did not form the attachment in the first place.
  • What is the critical period?
    If children experience maternal deprivation or privation within the critical period (0-30 months) then the psychological damage will be inevitable.
  • What are the consequences of maternal deprivation/ privation?
    Delayed social development - behaviour is often delinquent and deviated from social norms.

    Delayed intellectual development - low cognitive functions displayed through a low iq.

    Delayed emotional development - struggle to experience guilt or strong emotions i.e. affection less psychopathy.
  • What research did Bowlby do into maternal deprivation?
    Bowlby conducted the 44 thieves study to measure the relationship between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy. The study consisted of interviewing 44 teenage criminal for signs of affectionless psychopathy and interviewing their families for signs of maternal deprivation. When compared to a control group of 44 non criminals, Bowlby found that 14 displayed signs of affectionless psychopathy and 12 of these had suffered from maternal deprivation during the critical period of attachment formation. This was compared to only 2 of the control group who suffered maternal deprivation and none showed signs of emotional psychopathy. Therefore, concluding that maternal deprivation influences the likelihood of affectionless psychopathy.
  • What are the strengths of maternal deprivation?
    Real world application Bolwby's theory had an important impact on post war thinking about how children were looked after in hospitals. Before, Bolwby's theory children were separated from parents when they spent time in the hospital and visiting was discouraged and even forbidden. Robertson (1952) filmed a two year old girl for the 8 day period she stayed at a hospital, she was seen to be frequently distressed and begs to go home. Bowlby's and Robertson's work led to a major social change in hospital care for children.
  • Weaknesses of maternal deprivation?
    One weakness of Bowlbys research into maternal deprivation is the investigator effects as bowlby designed and conducted the experiment himself. There is a possibility that the participants may react to demand characteristics or social desirability bias and alter the truth which affects the validity of the study. Furthermore interviews with participants asking them to recall earlier years may be influenced by distortion or inaccuracies.