Describe and evaluate Bowlby theory of maternal deprivation. This is essentially a full 16-mark question which is all you need for the exam, you can also use it to answer all 4,6,8, 12 mark questions in the exam all you have to do is break it down.
Describe and evaluate Bowlby theory of maternal deprivation (16 marks)
Deprivation occurs when an attachment that is formed is broken. Separation is when a child
is not being physically in the presence of primary attachment figure. According to Bowlby if
an infant separated from their mother from their mother for an extended period of time
and are unable to develop warm, intimate and continuous relationship with their mother or
mother substitute before the age 2.5yrs (30m) during the critical period then psychological
development is inevitable. If a child is deprived of maternal care for too long during critical
period, it can have an effect on intellectual development they will suffer mental retardation
and abnormally low IQ. Bowlby suggested that this lack of attachment could have an effect
on emotional development and could result in behavioural issues such as delinquency and
emotional problems such as affectionless psychopathy which is an inability to experience
guilt or strong emotion for others. Furthermore, deprivation could also affect the child’s
ability to from relationships later in life, through the lack of an internal working model.
Bowlby 44 thieves study aimed to examine the links between affectionless psychopathy and
maternal deprivation. The study was of 44 teenage delinquents (accused of stealing) The
participants were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy and their families were
also interviewed to establish if there was prolonged early separation from their mothers. He
found 14/44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths, 12 also had
experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in first 2 years of their lives. The study
shows prolonged separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy
A strength of Bowlby maternal deprivation theory is the application of his work to
childrearing practice. This is as Bowlby’s work has led to significant changes in the way that
children are cared for hospital. For example, parents are now encouraged and allowed to
visit their children more frequently and there is greater flexibility in terms of visiting hours,
to ensure that deprivation does not occur. Thus, this matter because it demonstrates the
positive impact and application of Bowlby’s research to help improve childrearing practices
of children in hospitals to ensure deprivation does not occur.
Another strength of Bowlby maternal deprivation study is there is further research to
support it. For example, Goldfarb followed up 30 war orphaned children to the age of 12. Of
his original sample, half had been fostered by the age of 4 whilst the other remained in the
orphanage. At the age of 12, both groups of orphans IQ was tested. The group fostered had
an average IQ of 96, whereas the group that were not fostered by the age of 4 had an
average IQ f 68. This is a strength, because, Goldfarb’s finding reiterates the main
assumption of Bowlby theory showing that early separation and deprivation can lead to long
lasting effects on infant development and development in later life. However, a limitation of
this study is that these children were often traumatised due to the war and had poor quality
aftercare and these factors could have been the reason to later development problems
rather than separation. Thus, this is a limitation of Goldfarb’s study because we cannot
establish cause and effect that maternal deprivation causes low IQ, due to these
confounding variables.
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