Bowlby's Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

Maternal Deprivation= Bowlby believed that when an infant is separated from its main caregiver (mother) it causes long term psychological, emotional and behavioural damage

SHORT- TERM SEPARATION= separation between caregiver and infant for brief/ temporary amount of time- e.g day care

BOWLBY AND ROBERTSON'S PDD MODEL

  1. protest= when infant separated from mother experiences extreme distress- screams cries, clings to mother
  1. despair- when infant calms down but still has feelings internally, infant has given up- rejects comfort from others and just comforts themselves
  1. detachment- when infant starts to respond to others- but will reject the mother when she returns

RESEARCH TO SUPPORT

ROBERTSON AND ROBERTSON- film of john- him and his mother had a stable attachment- but then he was sent to a 9 day residential nursery whilst mother was in hospital.- he showed distress and confusion. but when mother returns, he ignores her but responds to father and continues to ignore/ remain angry at mother for 1 month

Douglas- found that separations of less than a week for infants less than 4 years old correlated with behavioural difficulties

QUINTON AND RUTTER- found that adolescents who had been separated from mother briefly when they were younger showed more behavioural problems than adolescents who hadnt- so Bowlby's MDH- that short term separations can have long term negative outcomes

RESRACH THAT LESSENS SUPPORT

ROBERTSON AND ROBERTSON PRACTICAL APPLICATION= brought children who had been briefly separated from mothers into their homes - so provided an alternative attachment figure and a normal routine and found this prevented psychological damage - so lessens support for Bowlby's MDH and shows that negative outcomes arent inevitable

Although there is a correlational link between negative outcomes and short term separation- kagan found no causal link

Barret - found individual differences - e.g mature children may cope better- suggests not all children experience distress

LONG TERM DEPRIVATION = when infant is separated from their main caregiver for a lengthy/ permanent period of time- e.g through divorce or death of a parent

RESEARCH TO SUPPOORT

RODGERS AND PRYOR- found that infants who had experienced 2 or more divorces had the lowest adjustment rates and more behavioural problems.

Other research found that infants with divorced parents scored lower on educational level, emotional wellbeing, self concept, physical wellbeing than infants with married parents- shows the variety of negative outcomes long term deprivation can have.

SCHAFFER- found that nearly all infants who had divorced parents had short term negative outcomes

RESEARCH THAT LESSENS SUPPORT

Heatherington and Stanley Hagan found that only 25% of infants with divorced parents experienced long term negative consequences - shows that effects of divorce are more short term than long term

Also research has found that infants may have better attachments with parents after they have divorced because of the negative environments.

RICHARDS- found that separation through different causes produces different negative outcomes- e.g divorce leads to stress, whilst death of a parent leads to depression

PRACTICAL APPLICATION= in some American states- it is the law that if parents are going to divorce they have to attend an educational programme which offers guidance to parents on how to provide emotional support for their infant to prevent negative outcomes

negative outcomes may be worse depending on age- apparently divorce is actually worse during adolescence 12- 14 - puberty

PRIVATION =failure/ inability to form an attachment with anyone

CASE STUDIES

CURTIS'S CASE STUDY OF GENIE = lacked emotional care- locked in room and beaten by mother- they found her at 13 years of age and she looked and acted like a 6 year old- couldnt walk or talk properly - she was very small- known as deprivation dwarfism- disruption in growth. she was primitive, spat at people . She failed to recover from privation. when she was discovered=IQ- 38 but then later at 18 was 70 still low though. went to later foster homes where she was abused and then went to live in a residential home

THE CZECH TWINS CASE STUDY

Identical twins- their mother died when gave birth- in first 11 months they were institutionalised- critical period. then they went to live with their father but the step mother abused them- they were raised In isolation for 5 years and when they were found at 7- they could hardly walk, fearful, speech was poor and also had deprivation dwarfism. they were placed in hospital and a foster home and they recovered. by 14 development caught up with them and they were fine- shows YOU CAN REVERSE EFFECTS OF PRIVATION- ATTACKS BOWLBY'S CRITICAL PERIOD AND CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS. they recovered more than genie as they had attachment with eachother- genie was on her own

THE BULLDOG BANK CHILDREN CASE STUDY: 6 children placed in Nazi concentration camp- formed no maternal attachments. they were taken to the bulldog bank centre aged 3- 4, they had little language, didnt know how to play with toys and were hostile to adults. they were devoted to eachother and refused to be separated- then very gradually became attached to carers and made rapid developments physically and intellectually. Some of them had been later traced and had good relationships. LESSENS SUPPORT FOR BOWLBY'S MDH AND CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS. DEVELOPED AN ATTACHMENT SO RECOVERED MORE THAN GENIE

EVALUATION OF CASE STUDIES

cant generalise to others- so not very representative

we dont know what happened to them before they were discovered- maybe relying on children's memory- might be distorted

or the case studies may have been relying on parents - e.g interviews with Genie's mother- not always telling the truth- kept changing story- social desirability bias

OTHER RESEARCH

HODGERS AND TIZARD PROCEDURE - 65 children who had been placed in an institution where carers weren't allowed to form attachments and there was a high turn over of staff. assessed children at 4, 8 and 12 and comapred the 24 children who were adopted at age of 4, 15 returned to their original homes and rest of them remained in the insitution. there was also a control group of children who hadnt been in an institution.

HODGERS AND TIZARD FINDINGS: found that the children who were adopted went on to form strong attachments with their adoptive parents - so recovered quite well but they still had friendship problems. found that the children who stayed in the institution had no strong attachmnets and behavioural problems. they found that the children who returned to their orginal homes had poor family and peer relationships and behavioural problems- suggests it had long lasting negative effects

HODGERS AND TIZARD EVALUATION-longlitudinal study-not everyone was followed through- sample decreases over time - SAMPLE ATTRITION- so not as representative. there were differences in each of the conditions - not all of the adoptive children and in eachother group had the same effects . also adoptive children may have been more developed beforehand

QUINTON- comapred 50 women who had been raised in an institution with a control group- ex institutional women went on to have difficulties being a parent- e.g most of their children ended up being in care - CONTINUTITY HYPOTHEISS. - they didnt show sensitive responsiveness due to absence of own mother. BUT some of them didnt have problems with their kids- the ones who went on to have favourable experiences in adulthood. suggests poor experiences associated with poor recovery but RECOVERY IS STILL POSSIBLE

INSTITUTIONALISATION= focuses on effects of infants raised in intuitions like orphans and children's homes

RESEARCH

BOWLBY'S 44 THEIVES STUDY CAN USE FOR ANY - Bowlby compared 44 thieves to a control group who had emotional problems but had not committed crimes. found that 1/2 of the 44 theives had been separated from mother under age of 5 whilst in the control group 2 of them had been separated . 32% of theives had affectionless psychopathy whereas 0 in the control group had it. 86% of the affectionless psychopaths had experienced separation from mother at an early age.

RUTTER - Found that if in children's home there are too many carers then can cause child to become disinhibited and not form a particularly strong attachment bond- they just throw themselves at anybody- become overfamiliar and clingy.

STRENGTS OF LONGLITUDINAL STUDIES

a lot of insight and detail into people being studied

researchers get to see impact of early experiences on development

WEAKNESSES OF LONGLITUDINAL STUDIES

SAMPLE ATTRUTION(sample decreases over time- as people drop out )

time consuming

other researchers may have to take over original- could distort results

hogders and tizard research- adoptive children may have had less problems because they were more developed to start off with, might not be because they were removed from an institution

also some studies may only be snapshots of participants life- so may get a distorted picture- less valid

THE ROMANION ORHPHANS STUDY BY RUTTER

CONTEXT - was communist country- lot of people disappeared and there were a lot of orphans. the orphanages were in terrible conditions- no toys , basic facilities, not fed properly. lot of British people adopted these orphans. so was natural longlitudinal studies

PROCEDURE - different conditions were the ages that the romamnian orphans were being adopted- before 6 months, 6 months to 2 years and after 2 years.. 111 Romanian orphans initially assessed for height, head circumference and cognitive functioning on arrival in Britain. all children were again assessed at 4. a control group of 52 British adopted children were also assessed.

FINDINGS- 50% of the Romanian orphans had very poor cognitive functioning at initial assessment and most were underweight. the control group didnt show these problems. at age 4 years the Romanian orphans showed great improvements in physical and cognitive development, with the orphans adopted before 6 months of age doing aswell as the British adopted children.

CONCLUSIONS- the negative ffects of institutionalisation can be overcome by sensitive, nurturing care. also as the British adopted children (who had been separated from their mothers) did not suffer developmental outcomes it can be seen that separation from carers will not on its own cause negative developmental effects

EVALUATION - children have only been assessed up to a certain age- so other follow ups are needed to assess the long tern effects of institutionalisation and the effects of the better more nurturing environment. also only some of the children received detailed clinical investigations- so its difficult to generalise findings. also because the children were not studied in the Romanian orphanages it isn't possible to state which aspects of privation were most influential.

FOLLOW UP RESRACH OF THE ROMANIAN ORPHANS STUDY

O' Connor- most long lasting negative effects= difficulties making attachments. also 'indiscriminate friendliness (children interact with strangers in teh same way as they would do with primary caregivers- and this is positively correlated with the amount of time spent in the insitution

RUTTER- followed up the same children at age 11 - finding that many showed normal levels of functioning, but about 50% of those showed disinhibited attachments at age 6 were still doing so

rich in detail- gives a lot of insight

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES - research shows that some children are no as strongly affected as others- Rutter suggested that it might be that some of the children received special attention in the institution- and this may have enabled them to cope better.

EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONALISATION

DEPRIVATION DWARFISM- lack of emotional care disrupts growth

reduced cognitive abilities- such as IQ

Disinhibited Attachmnet- a form of insecure attachmnet- where they are overfriendly with strangers- they throw themselves at anyone

Poor parenting- use Harlow's rape rack and how led to poor parenting. also use Quintons study as an example