AO3 - Romanian Orphan Studies: Institutionalisation

• Research into the effects of institutionalisation has practical applications. This is because the principles of the theory that institutionalisation has led to psychological problems (e.g. disinhibited attachment) has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by children growing up outside their family home. For example, in children’s homes, the children tend to have one or two ‘key workers’ who play a central role in the child’s emotional care, to reduce the negative effects of institutionalisation. Therefore, institutionalisation research is an important part of applied psychology.
• Rutter’s research has high control over extraneous variables. In previous orphans’ studies, the children had often experienced neglect or abuse before being institutionalised and it was difficult to tell if any long-term effects were due to the neglect and abuse or the institutional care. In Rutter’s research, the majority of the Romanian orphans had been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them, so it was possible to study the effects of institutionalisation without these confounding variables. Therefore, increasing the internal validity of Rutter's research.
• However, studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables. The quality of care in these institutions was extremely poor, with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort. This means that the harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may be due to the effects of poor institutional care, rather than institutional care on its own. Limiting the research into the effects of institutionalisation.
• Moreover, as this was a naturally occurring study, children were not randomly assigned to conditions (adopted before 6 months, adopted between 6months and 2 years, adopted after 2 years) as it would have been unethical to do so. Therefore, those children adopted earlier may have been the more sociable ones which could explain why they were chosen by the adoptee parents and consequently had less development issues. This would be a confounding variable, therefore lowering the internal validity of Rutter’s research into the effects of institutionalisation.