Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory

• What is privation?


  Not having the opportunity to form a bond in the first instance
• What is maternal deprivation?

  A bond or attachment has been formed with the main caregiver, but it has been disrupted for some reason
• What is separation?

  • Separation = not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure. This is only an issue if the child is deprived i.e. they lose an element of her care.
  • Brief separations, particularly if there is a substitute caregiver, are not significant for development but extended separations can lead to deprivation
• What is the critical period?


  Bowlby considered that there was a critical period from about 6 months to 3 years when infants should have continuous, unbroken relationship with one person (monotropism)
• What effect does maternal deprivation have on intellectual development?


  Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would experience delayed intellectual development, characterised by abnormally low IQ. This has been demonstrated in studies of adoption. Goldfarb (1947) found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who had been fostered and had a higher standard of emotional care.
• What was JB’s maternal deprivation hypothesis?


  “Prolonged deprivation of a young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character...similar in form...to deprivation of vitamins in infancy”
• What are the effects of maternal deprivation on emotional development?


  – A second way that deprivation affects development is the child’s emotional development. Bowly identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotions towards others. This prevents a person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality. Affectionlesspsychopathscannotappreciatethe feelings of victims and so lack remorse for their actions.
• What was the aim of Bowlby’s (1946) 44 Thieves study?


  Bowlby aimed to test his maternal deprivation hypothesis, in particular the effects of early separations and affectionless psychopathy
• What was the method of Bowlby’s (1946) 44 Thieves study?


  Bowlby interviewed the children and their families, who attended a clinic where he worked. He compared the backgrounds of 44 juvenile thieves with the background of 44 other non- delinquent children
• What were the findings of Bowlby’s (1946) 44 Thieves study?


  14 out of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths. Of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives.

  5 of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced separations. Of the control group only 2 of the 44 had experienced prolonged separations.
• What was the conclusion of Bowlby’s (1946) 44 Thieves study?


  Separation in early life led to long term ill effects, particularly adversely affecting emotional development. Bowlby concluded that there was a link between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy.
• Limitation of Bowlby's theory

  Poor evidence
• A limitation of Bowlby's theory is that the evidence that is used may be poor
• Evidence used by Bowlby


  • Studies of children orphaned during the Second World War (Goldfarb)
  • Studies of children growing up in poor quality orphanages
  • 44 thieves study
• The evidence used by Bowlby is flawed
• War-orphans were traumatised and often had poor after-care


  These factors might have been causes of later developmental difficulties rather than separation
• Children growing up from birth in poor quality institutions were deprived of many aspects of care


  Not just maternal care
• The 44 thieves study had some major design flaws, most importantly bias
• Bowlby himself carried out the assessments for affectionless psychopathy and the family interviews, knowing what he hoped to find
• This calls into question Bowlby's theory as we do not know if the results he found were down to the deprivation or other extraneous factors
• What is a counterpoint for Bowlby’s theory - research support?

  • However a new line of research has provided some modest support for the idea that maternal deprivation can have long- term effects. Levy et al (2003) showed that separating baby rats from their mothers for as little as a day had a permanent effect on their social development though not other aspects of development.

  This means that although Bowlby relied on flawed evidence to support the theory of maternal deprivation, there are other sources of evidence for his ideas
• Deprivation


  The loss of the primary attachment figure after attachment has developed
• Privation


  The failure to form any attachment in the first place - this could be children brought up in institutional care
• Rutter (1981) drew an important distinction between deprivation and privation
• The severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is more likely to be the result of privation
• Many of the children in the 44 thieves study had disrupted early lives and may never have formed strong attachments
• This means that Bowlby may have overestimated the seriousness of the effects of deprivation in children's development
• Critical period


  Bowlby's concept that prolonged separation within this period inevitably causes damage
• Bowlby's concept of critical period

  Has issues
• Bowlby believed that prolonged separation within the critical period inevitably caused damage
• Later research has shown that damage is not inevitable
• Koluchova's case


  • Twin boys from Czechoslovakia isolated from 18 months to 7 years, locked in a cupboard, recovered fully when cared for by 2 loving adults
• Bowlby's 44 Thieves study


  • Sample was biased - all boys
  • Case studies - rich and insightful data
  • Unique - making generalisations to a wider population difficult
• The data collection is retrospective (i.e. the children and their parents had to think back many years to the child's younger days)
• Retrospective data collection can produce inaccuracies
• Some of the children were only separated for short periods, so it is difficult to believe this could have caused such emotional disturbances
• The results are correlational, so we cannot prove cause and effect
• Bowlby assumed that the early separation had caused the later disturbance, but many other factors could be responsible - poverty
• Bowlby did not explain why the two in the control had experienced separation had not become delinquent
• What is a limitation of Bowlby’s theory - counter-evidence?

  • POINT = Another limitation is that there is counter- evidence to Bowlby’s theory.
  • EVIDENCE = Hilda Lewis partially replicated the 44 thieves study on a larger scale, looking at 500 young people. In her sample a history of early prolonged separation from the mother did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships.
  • EXPLAIN = This is a problem for the theory as it suggests that other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal deprivation.