maternal deprivation

• Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

  Bowlby proposed that continuous care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development, and that prolonged seperation and deprivation of emotional care from this adult causes serious damage to emotional and intellectual development. If this deprivation of emotional care is for an extended period of time during the critical period then the damage is inevitable
• Effects on developments

  • Intellectual: delayed intellectual development and low IQ. Goldfarb (1947) ffound children who stayed in an orphanage had lower average IQ scores than those fostered at age 12
  • Emotional: develop affectionless psychopathy. This is the inability to experience emotions towards others and is associated with criminality. They also lack the ability to form close long lasting relationships
• Evaluation of Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

  • 44 thieves: Bowlby (1944) found that 14 out of 44 teenage thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths and 12 of these had experienced prolonged seperation from their mothers in the first two years of their life
  • Privation: Rutter (1976) argues that Bowlby muddled deprivation with privation. Privation is when an attachment has never been formed
  • Czech twins: the Czech twins who were locked in a cupboard by their stepmother from the ages of 18 months to 7 years but were able to form a close attachment with two new loving parents