evaluating bowlby

• 1. weakness is that there is contradicting evidence about the effects of maternal deprivation
• 1. suggested that separation alone is not enough to cause lasting damage
• 1. Rutter et al, compared Romanian orphans that have been adopted before or after the age of six months, found that a lack of emotional care before the age of six months is something children can recover from
• 1. limitation as it raises doubts about the validity of the conclusions drawn from the study
• 2. strength is that conclusions about the impacts of a lack of emotional care have been supported by research
• 2. key consequences of a lack of emotional care include, physical underdevelopment, intellectual difficulties and relationship problems
• 2. rutter et al. (2010) found Romanian orphans adopted after 6 months lagged behind a control group of UK children on measures of physical, cognitive and social development
• 2. strength as it supports Bowlby’s theories about the importance of childhood experiences on development
• methodology and procedures
• 3. limitation is that casual conclusions cannot be drawn as it is not an experiment
• 3. means that other variables could have caused the emotional problems
• 3. could have been that affection less character of the child caused the separations
• 3. no control of variables and therefore only a relationship between the variables can be suggested
• 4.strength is that he used a case study design
• 4. means that he gathered rich, detailed qualitative data from a range of sources
• 4. Bowlby made use of psychological assessments, school reports and interviews with the children and their mothers, resulting in over 25 pages of data on case
• 4. strength as findings have high validity
• ethical issues & social implications
• strength is that social implication that is positive
• treatments could be offered to delinquents
• Bowlby suggested psychoanalytic therapies could be used to help delinquents overcome emotional difficulties caused by maternal deprivation
• strength means that society could benefit from the findings
• limitation is the associated ethical issues
• confidentiality and privacy
• published first names and surname initials of children in report, as well as personal information about home lives
• limitation as it would have made the children easy to identify and not clear whether the families knew this information would be published