Bowlby's theory of Maternal Deprivation

• Remembering the Peels - Bowlby's 44 thieves study:

  1. Weakness - Economic implications
  2. Weakness - Confounding variables
  3. Weakness - Researcher bias
  4. Strength - Real life application
• Peels - Bowlby's 44 Thieves Study:

  1. Weakness - Economic implications - mums should stay at home and not go to work

  creates economical complications
• Peels - Bowlby's 44 Thieves Study:

  2. Weakness - confounding variables - war affected many teenagers in the study which may have led to them growing up and becoming criminals

  • issues with the methodology
• Peels - Bowlby's 44 Thieves Study:

  3) Weakness - researcher bias - Bowlby carried out the tests himself and so knew what he was testing for therefore could have looked out for specific behaviours

  • methodology is inaccurate due to biases
• Peels - Bowlby's 44 Thieves Study:

  4) Strength - Real life application - give care to children to avoid them becoming criminals or help them in rehabilitation

  
  

  • Gives explanatory power
• When did Bowlby develop the theory of maternal deprivation?


  1951
• Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation:

  The continual presence of nurture from a mother is essential for normal psychological development of infants.

  Bowlby went as far as saying - ' mother-love is as important for mental health as vitamins and proteins for physical health'
• Bowlby believed that if children were deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period they would suffer delayed intellectual development
• Bowlby identified affectionless psychopathy as the inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others. This prevents the person developing normal relationship and is associated with criminality
• Affectionless psychopaths cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and lack remorse for their actions
• Aim of Bowlbys 44 thieves study:

  Examined the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation
• Procedure of Bowlby's 44 thieves study:

  • 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing
  • They were interviewed for lack of affection and lack of guilt
  • Family were also interviewed to establish separations from mum
  • Sample was compared to control group of 44 non-criminals but emotionally disturbed young people
• Results of Bowlby's 44 thieves study:

  • 14 of the 44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from mum in the first 2 years of life.
  • Only 5 of the remaining 30 had experienced that
  • Only 2 of the 44 controls had experienced long separations
• Conclusion of Bowlby's 44 thieves study:

  Prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy
• Separation means a child is not in the presence of a primary attachment figure - only becomes a a problem when the child is deprived of emotional care (mother could be present but depressed)
• Bowlby saw the first two and a half years of life as the critical period
• If a child was separated from mother for too long (and so deprived of emotional care) in the critical period then psychical damage was inevitable
• Effects on development:

  • intellectual development - delayed and abnormally low IQ
  • emotional development - affectionless psychopathy