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The effects of:
disruption of attachment
failure to form attachment (privation)
institutional care
“Prolonged deprivation of a young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character …similar in form… to deprivation of vitamins in infancy.”
Bowlby (1953)
Based on Bowlby’s ideas:Attachment is essential for healthy developmentMust occur within sensitive period
Predicts developmental difficulty if the attachment relationship goes wrong:General developmental problemsSpecific issues with social development
Spitz (1945)
Children in orphanagesFound signs of ‘anaclitic
depression’: apathy, withdrawal, helplessness, low appetite
Survival rates of children raised in prison were better than those raised in orphanages
Spitz & Wolf (1946)
100 psychologically normal children in long-term hospital care
Most showed signs of depressionRecovered quickly if period of
hospitalisation was less than 3 months
Aim – To test the MDH by comparing a group of ‘thieves’ to another group of children to see if the ‘thieves’ had experienced early separations from their caregiver.
Procedure – the children and their parents were interviewed by Bowlby. Information was collected about their early life experiences.
Disruption of Attachment (long-term)- Bowlby 1944
Findings 88 emotionally maladjusted 5-16y olds
44 thieves 44 controls
16 28Affectionless not
Psychopaths
86% 17% 4%had frequent early separations from mother
Bowlby 1944
What did he conclude?
Lack of moral constraints on
behaviour
Inability to form relationships with
others
Delinquent or criminal behaviour
Evaluation
Information was collected retrospectively -it is likely that such recall was not accurate lack of internal validity
People often do not answer an interviewer’s question truthfully – the parents may have wanted to present themselves in a better light (social desirability bias) lack of validity. Bowlby was biased in his observations too.
Used correlation, so we cannot say that early separations were the cause of the behaviour, we can only say they are linked – might be vice versa.
Bowlby 1944
So...
Separation = a physical separation from caregiver, where alternative emotional care is substituted
No long-term problems
Deprivation = a loss of emotional care that accompanies separation from the caregiver, occurring when no (or inadequate) alternative emotional care is offered
emotional maladjustment
But...
Deprivation – an attachment forms but is then discontinued
whereasPrivation – no opportunity is given for attachments to form