How do social and environmental factors, including child-parent relationships, affect the
development of moral and/or anti-social behaviour?
Many highly regarded sources of evidence exist to support that both social factors (such as
relationships of a person with others), and environmental factors (such as relationships of a
person with their surroundings) play a key role in shaping the development of moral and
immoral (in particular antisocial) behaviour. Behaviour regarded as “moral” is defined as
“holding or manifesting high principles for proper conduct” ("Definition of moral in English by
Oxford Dictionaries", 2017). Conversely, immoral actions are defined as “not conforming to
accepted standards of morality” ("Definition of immoral in English by Oxford Dictionaries",
2017). This essay will focus on how different factors influence the development of immoral
behaviours throughout an individual’s development.
A key social factor influencing the behaviour of a developing child is the relationship they hold
with their parent. John Bowlby’s ‘evolutionary theory of attachment’ (1969) suggests that
children “come into the world biologically pre-programmed to from attachments with others,
because this will help them to survive” ("John Bowlby | Maternal Deprivation Theory | Simply
Psychology", 2017). He also proposed a ‘Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis’ (1952) suggesting
that any separation between a child and their caregiver in the early stages of life is likely to have
serious intellectual, social and emotional consequences.
In addition, Bowlby (1944) conducted a “44 thieves study” investigating this, involving the
examination of 44 adolescent juvenile delinquents alongside 44 ‘control’ subjects that, although
, Student ID: 4314752
had suffered emotional problems, had not yet committed any crimes. His aim was to investigate
the long-term effects of maternal deprivation. Bowlby found that over 50% of the criminals had
been separated from their mothers for longer than six months during the ages of 0-5 years. In his
non-criminal control group however, only 2 subjects had experienced this kind of maternal
deprivation.
Furthermore, Bowlby found that 32% of the juvenile delinquents showed what he called
'affectionless psychopathy', meaning they were unable to care about or feel affection for others,
whilst none of the control group were classed as affectionless psychopaths. Bowlby concluded
that experiencing maternal deprivation in early life (between the ages of 6 months and 4 years)
would cause permanent emotional damage to the child and the likely development of behavioural
abnormalities such as antisocial behaviour.
However, Bowlby’s findings were criticised by Rutter (1972) due to the fact that he appeared to
conclude that affectionless psychopathy was caused by maternal deprivation. This is merely
correlational and thus only shows a relationship between these two variables (experiencing
maternal deprivation and developing affectionless psychopathy). The study does not take into
account other factors such as wealth or quality of education which may have affected the
behaviour of the 44 thieves rather than simply maternal deprivation. Rutter suggests that here,
Bowlby is confusing cause and effect with correlation.
Furthermore, the way in which influential adults act around children appears to have a significant
effect on the way in which they behave, such that if the adult chooses to act in an ‘immoral’ and
‘antisocial’ way around the child, it is likely that the child will develop similar behaviours.
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