AO1

• An institution is a place such as an orphanage or hospital that children live at for a long period of time.
• Hodges and Tizard conducted research into institutionalisation through a longitudal study of 65 children who had been placed in an orphanage before 4 months. Some were adopted, returned to their mothers or remained in the orphanage. Those who were adopted had strong family relationships compared to those who returned to their mothers or remained, who had weaker family relationships. They concluded that children can recover from maternal privation if they receive good quality care.
• Many of the children later adopted displayed disinhibited attachment. This is when they do not discriminate between people they choose as their attachment figure and tend to be attention-seeking and overfriendly. They are less likely to be able to form relationships.
• Rutter et al investigated whether good quality care can make up for poor quality institution experience. They used a natural experiment, investigating 165 Romanian orphans who were adopted by British families before 2 years of age. They divided the children into 3 groups depending on when they were adopted; before 6 months, between 6 months and 2 years and 2+ years. They found that those adopted after 6 months were more likely to have a disinhibited attachment and those adopted before were less likely. This shows that the earlier they are adopted, the more likely they are to recovery from MD.