maternal deprivation - bowlby

• Bowlby's theory of Maternal deprivation


  Argues if the child's monotropic attachment is disrupted during the critical period, such as through prolonged separation from the mother, this deprivation will result in negative and irreversible consequences, affecting the infant's social, emotional and intellectual skills.
• How long is Bowlby's critical period?

  30 months (two and a half years)
• Consequences of deprivation


  Psychological damage is inevitable if a child is separated from their mother and there is no suitable substitute care for a long time during the critical period.

  Deprivation during the critical period would lead to disrupted intellectual development, therefore causing low IQ.

  Delinquency due to disrupted social development, behaviour is often outside acceptable norms.

  Maternal deprivation might affect emotional development, risking the child becoming an 'affectionless psychopath'.
• Consequences of deprivation - Affectionless psychopath


  Someone who is unable to experience guilt or strong emotion for others

  This prevents them from forming normal relationships and is linked with criminality.
• Bowlby's 44 thieves


  Aim:

  To examine the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation.

  Procedure:

  44 'thieves' were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy. Their families were also interviewed in order to establish whether the 'thieves' had prolonged early separation from their mothers.

  Findings:

  14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths.

  12/14 had experience separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives.

  Only 5 out of the remaining 30 'thieves' had experienced separation.

  2/44 in the control group had experienced long term separations.
• + Real-world applications


  E - Bowlby's research led to social change in the way that children were cared for. They now try to ensure that children are only around one or two 'keyworkers'.

  E - This allows the children to form healthier attachments with others.

  L - Therefore, this has a positive effect on the economy since having healthier relationships with keyworkers will lead to less anti-social behaviour, which decreases the need for the police which saves money.
• + Supporting evidence


  E - Supported his theory with the 44 thieves study where affectionless psychopathy was increased in thieves who has prolonged seperation from their mother as a child during the critical period.

  E - Suggests there is a link between maternal deprivation and delinquency.

  L - Therefore, this supporting research increases the validity of the Bowlby's theory.
• - Evidence of children forming healthy attachments after critical period


  E - Rutter conducted orphan studies which showed that children could form attachments to their adoptive parents even after the critical period.

  E - Suggests that Bowlby's theory of the critical period may not be valid and decreases the confidence of the theory.

  L - However, this is positive for the children forming healthy attachments, but still contradicts Bowlby's research.
• - Individual differences


  E - There are individual differences in the reaction to separation. Barrett reviewed various studies on separation and found that securely attached children sometimes cope reasonably well, whereas insecurely attached children become especially distressed.

  E - The effects of maternal deprivation are not experienced in the same way and do not affect children in a uniform way.
• Internal working model


  As the monotropic relationship with the mother is the first and most important relationship the infant has, it forms a template (schema) for future relationships.
• Continuity hypothesis


  Suggests deprivation caused by prolonged separations from the mother limits the ability of the infant to form an effective internal working model, leading to unsuccessful childhood and adult relationships and issues with their parenting skills.