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BOWLBY'S THEORY OF MATERNAL DEPRIVATION - Coggle Diagram
BOWLBY'S THEORY OF MATERNAL DEPRIVATION
Bowlby
He states that any separation from the mother or PCG has irreversible social, emotional + cognitive consequences
Continual presence from a mother/mother substitute is needed for normal psychological development of an infant
He also stated that if a child is separated from the mother/substitute care giver + deprived of emotional care for an extended period during the critical period, then psychological damage is inevitable
If suitable substitute emotional care is provided, then the negative effects may be avoided
Critical period, internal working model, emotional development/affectionless psychopaths
E.g. intellectual + emotional development can be affected by prolonged absence of maternal love
Intellectual under development refers to low IQ + possible mental retardation
Bowlby - time away from the mother during the critical period (2.5 years) affects the development of a positive internal working model + infants will not develop a positive framework to form relationships with others in the future
Goldfarb - found a lower IQ in children who stayed in institutions compared to those who got adopted
Emotional development refers to individuals developing into affectionless psychopaths, characterised by no empathy, inability to experience guilt or strong emotion or others
Bowlby stated that seperation of maternal love during infancy can have long term impacts into adulthood e.g. can affect their ability to parent + form romantic relationships
(continuity hypothesis)
Bowlby's theory = real world benefits + application of this theory
Bowlby's research showed the importance of positive attachment experienced + prevented prolonged separation in the first 5 years
This has led to major social change in the way that children are cared for in hospitals with parental visits + stays - now being the norms so children can remain in contact with their parents
The implications are even further widespread as some national governments offer more financial support for young families in terms of maternity + paternity leave - e.g. Sweden offers 480 days parental leave, clearly highlighting its commitment to support children's early attachment experiences
Before Bowlby's theory, children were separated from parents when they went to hospital, often for many days + visiting was discouraged/forbidden
Supporting Study - Bowlby's 44 thieves
Found that 14/44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths and of these 14 12 had experienced prolonged early separation from mother before the age of 5 - a sensitive period for development
This shows that prolonged early sepeartion from mother caused affectionless psychopathy
Contradicting study - Rutter's Romanian orphans study
Rutter found that the orphans who were deprived of maternal love went on to have cognitive (lower IQ) and attachment issues (more likely to have dis-inhibited attachment) - if adopted early enough they could recover from these negative effects
This suggests that Bowlby's idea of the effects being irreversible are not inevitable + can infact be reversed if maternal love is provided from an early age
Further contradictory evidence =
Lewis
He replicated the thieves study with 500 young people
He found that prolonged early separation from the mother did not predict criminality/difficulty forming close relationships
This shows other factors may affect the outcome of maternal deprivation
Bowlby himself conducted the assessment for affectionless psychopaths
This suggests that there may have been interviewer bias
Bowlby knew what he hoped to find in this study andthis may have impacted the results
This questions the validity of the evidence supporting the maternal deprivation hypothesis