Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation

Bowlby’s theory of Maternal deprivation

ACIDIC is the memory strategy for Bowlby’s Maternal deprivation

This stands for:

  • Affectionless psychopathology
  • Critical period
  • IQ low – Intellectual issues
  • Deprivation
  • Internal Working Model –
  • Criminal behaviour – delinquency

Deprivation

Separation simply means that child is not in the presence with the primary care giver. For example the mother goes into the kitchen and the child is in the living room, or if the parents go out for date for the night and they baby is at home with a sitter. 

Deprivation is when a child loses an element of care from their care-givers due to prolonged periods of separation.

Bowlby believed that prolonged separation led to major issues in a child’s intellectual development (IQ in particular) and had the capacity to cause issues such as delinquency and affectionless psychopathy.

The Critical Period

Bowlby believed that a child needed to attach to a care-giver by 2 years old. If the child suffered with prolonged separation from the caregiver then this would lead to irreversible long-term effects. These are outlined below.

Effects of development

Bowlby concluded that maternal deprivation in the child’s early life caused permanent emotional damage. He diagnosed this as a condition and called it Affectionless Psychopathy. According to Bowlby, this condition involves a lack of emotional development, characterised by a lack of concern for others, lack of guilt and inability to form meaningful and lasting relationships.

Delinquency was another effect that Bowlby outlines. This is because the lack of remorse and guilt links to criminal behaviour.

He also believed that intellectual development was severely affected by maternal deprivation. Children are at risk of delayed intellectual development and low IQ. Research to support this can be seen below in the Goldfarb (1947) study. He compared a group of children who spent the first few months in an orphanage and were then fostered, with a group of children who spent 3 years in an orphanage before being fostered, (i.e. had little opportunity to form attachments in early life). The children who had spent 3 years at the orphanage performed less well on IQ tests and were less social and more likely to be aggressive! 

Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis: 44 Thieves  (1944)

Aim:

To understand the effects of maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy.

Procedure:

Bowlby believed that the effects of early deprivation were permanent and irreversible.  As part of his research he compared the backgrounds of 44 children who had grown up to be delinquent and involved in theft (hence the name 44 thieves). He also looked at a control group of 44 children who had not committed any crimes, but were emotionally disturbed. In order to collect data, he interviewed both the children and their families. Bowlby wanted to look for signs of affectionless apathy in the children, and wanted to understand the level of early separation by interviewing the families.

Results:

Bowlby found that 14 of the 44 thieves were diagnosed by Bowlby as having affectionless psychopathy, the main symptom of which is lack of moral conscience. Out of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mother in the first 2 years of their lives. In contrast only 5 out of the remaining 30 (who were not classed as having affectionless psychopathology) had experienced some separation.

Conclusion: Separation in early life led to long term ill effects, particularly adversely affecting emotional development.

Evaluation

Strengths:

  • Point: One strength of Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory is that there is research to support. Evidence: Bowlby compared 44 thieves with a control group who had not committed crimes. Bowlby found that 14 of the 44 thieves were diagnosed by Bowlby as having affectionless psychopathy, the main symptom of which is lack of moral conscience. Out of the 14, 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mother in the first 2 years of their lives. Explain: This supports Maternal deprivation as it suggests that a child is more likely to have poor emotional and social development if they experience deprivation during the critical period.
  • Point: Bowlby’s maternal deprivation has led to useful applications. Evidence: For example, a programme called Family-Centred Care (FCC) is a technique employed by many aspects of care which encourages parents to maintain contact and routine when their children are in hospital. Parents are encouraged to uphold routines within the hospital such as bathing, dressing, reading, or singing to the child. Explain: This is useful because it means that children can see that the parents are responding to their needs and reducing feelings of neglect. Consequently: Bowlby’s research highlighted the importance of maintaining contact with the primary care giver which ultimately changed the way society viewed parent child relationships.

Weaknesses:

  • Research to oppose – Point: One issue with Bowlby’s theory is that there is research to oppose. Evidence: Lewis (1954) Replicated 44 thieves’ study with 500 young people. Those with prolonged separation from the mother did not predict delinquency or difficultly in forming relationships. Explain: This goes against maternal deprivation because it indicates that there maybe other factors that impact a child’s emotional and social development. Consequence: This reduces the credibility of the theory because it shows that maternal deprivation has been falsified and therefore suggests that there could be a superior explanation for the developmental effects that are shown in the children.
  • Validity & Bias: The data collection is retrospective (i.e. the children and their parents had to think back many years to the child’s younger days). This can produce inaccuracies (as you will appreciate being experts on the memory process!). There is also the issue of social desirability bias. Parents will try to portray their parenting skills in a positive light.
  • Point: Although it was not Bowlby’s intention, one weakness of his theory is that it is socially sensitive. Evidence: Bowlby’s theorises that if a child experiences maternal deprivation during the critical period, this increases negative effects such as affectionless psychopathy and difficulty in forming relationships later on in life. Explain: This is socially sensitive because it targets mothers as being the cause of negative outcomes and could create a negative perception towards mothers. Consequence: Consequently, this negative perception may put pressure on mothers to stay at home with their children because this theory could make mothers feel guilty for going to work. Challenge: Furthermore, the theory of maternal deprivation may unintentionally create restrictions on mothers e.g. not allowing mothers to access full time jobs, or leadership roles.
  • Bias & Validity: Bowlby carried out the interviews and assessments on affectionless psychopathy. Some level bias may have played a role, in the sense that he wanted to see those children who were deprived as affectionless psychopaths! Bowlby was extremely passionate about his work, not to mention that he himself was deprived as a child! Bowlby was a kind and caring man who wanted to save children.
  • Point: One weakness is that the main research Bowlby used to support maternal deprivation has poor internal validity. Evidence: Bowlby assumed that the early separation had been the factor that caused the later disturbance in children with negative outcomes. Explain: This lacks internal validity because it is difficult to prove using a quasi-experiment. Due to the limited control of extraneous variables, it’s hard to prove that two variables (in this case deprivation and delinquency) have a definite cause and effect relationship. Consequence: This reduces the credibility of the theory because many other factors such as poverty could be responsible for delinquency, and not just maternal deprivation.
  • Point: Bowlby failed to distinguish between privation and deprivation. Evidence: Rutter argued that children in institutions such as orphanages never had the opportunity to form attachments because of the high turn-over of staff. Rutter called this privation as opposed to the deprivation that Bowlby had assumed. Deprivation is where a child had a primary care-giver but has lost the attachment. Explain: Bowlby should have identified the children who were deprived in early childhood or had not formed an attachment. He could then have seen whether the consequences were different and adapted his theory to account for this. Consequently: This weakens Bowlby’s theory because the conclusions drawn may not provide an accurate understanding of the effects that deprivation has on a child.  

An extra interesting case study:

The Case Study of Genie 

Found at the age of 13, she had been kept tied to a potty chair for much of her life.  She had been severely punished for making a noise.  When she was found, she had the appearance of a six or seven year old.  She was described as ‘unsocialised, primitive and hardly human.’

Following her discovery she continued to be mistreated at the hands of doctors and psychologists who were more interested in furthering their own careers than in Genie’s welfare.  She never acquired full language skills and failed to adjust socially.

Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether Genie was, as her father suggested, brain damaged at birth.  If this had been the case this could partly explain her lack of progress.