Attachment - Maternal Deprivation - continued emotional care from mother or mother-substitute is necessary for normal emotional and intellectual development
Separation, Deprivation and the Critical Period
Separation - the child is not physically in the presence of the primary attachment figure.
Deprivation - losing emotional care as a result of the separation. Can be avoided if alternative care is offered, thus separation doesn't always cause deprivation.
Critical Period - if child is separated from their mother (without alternative care) for an extended time during the first 30 months, then psychological damage is inevitable.
Effects on Development
Intellectual Development - being deprived of maternal care for too long during the critical period leads to mental retardation and low IQ. Goldfarb found lower IQs in children from institutions compared to fostered children.
Emotional Development - lack of emotional care may lead to affectionless psychopathy (inability to experience guilt or strong emotion for others). Prevents the person developing normal relationships and is associated with criminality.
Study: Bowlby's 44 Thieves
Procedure
Findings/Conclusions
Sample of 44 delinquent teenagers accused of stealing.
Families were also interviewed to establish any prolonged separation from mothers.
'Thieves' were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy, characterised by lack of affection, guilt or empathy.
14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths. Of these, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives.
Only 5 of the remaining 30 thieves had experienced separations. Suggests prolonged early separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.
Evaluation
Sources of evidence are flawed - Goldfarb's study used war orphans who were traumatised and often had poor after-care. These could be the cause of their developmental difficulties rather than separation. Also, children from institutions were deprived of many types of care, not just maternal, so we cannot be certain that maternal deprivation caused their issues. Also, Bowlby carried out interviews for his study himself. Results could be biased as he knew what he wanted to find.
Counter-evidence - Lewis partially replicated the study with 500 young people. Early prolonged maternal separation did not predict criminality or difficulty forming close relationships, suggesting other factors may affect the outcome of early maternal separation.
Animal studies have demonstrated maternal deprivation having long-term affects - Levy et al. showed that separating baby rats from their mother for as little as a day had a permanent affect on social development. However, there is doubt as to whether studies like these can be generalised to humans.
Bowlby didn't distinguish between deprivation and privation - Rutter distinguished between them. Deprivation is separation after attachment has occurred, privation is where no attachment was made at all. The severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is possibly the result of privation instead. Many of the 44 thieves had moved from home to home and so may have never formed attachments in the first place. Therefore deprivation may not be the cause of their affectionless psychopathy.