Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation

• define monotropy (Bowlby)


  - the unique attachment bond between an infant and its mother

  - the mother acts as a secure base, which the child uses to explore the world and return to for comfort and safety
• what is Bowlby's theory of Maternal Deprivation?


  - argues if the child's monotropic attachment is disrupted during the 'critical period', this deprivation will result in negative and irreversible consequences

  - eg: affects the infant's social, emotional and intellectual skills
• consequences of deprivation, delinquency


  - due to disrupted social development, behaviour is often outside acceptable norms; eg: petty crime
• CoD, affectionless psychopathy


  - due to disrupted emotional development, children are unable to show caring behaviour to others or empathy for other peoples' feelings

  - have little guilt for their harmful actions
• CoD, low IQ


  - due to disrupted intellectual development, cognitive abilities are lower than peers
• what does the continuity hypothesis suggest?


  - deprivation caused by prolonged separations from the mother limits the ability of the infant to form an effective internal working model

  - this leads to unsuccessful childhood and adult relationships and issues with their parenting skills
• A03, 44 thieves study


  - 44 child thieves and a control group of 44 emotionally disturbed non-thieves were interviewed to assess affectionless psychopathy, parents asked about maternal deprivation during critical period

  - found that 14 thieves matched the criteria for affectionless psychopathy compared to none in the control group, 12 experienced prolonged separation compared to 2 in the control group

  - suggests a link between maternal deprivation and delinquency
• A03, correlation research


  - research supporting maternal deprivation is correlational, delinquency and deprivation could be linked to a third factor

  - difficult to establish a cause/effect relationship
• what does Bowlby think the 3 consequences of deprivation are?

  • delinquency: behaviour is outside norms
  • affectionless psychopathy: children are unable to show caring behaviour to others or empathy/guilt
  • low IQ: cognitive abilities are worse than peers