Bowlby's Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

Bowlby thinks that a strong attachment to a mother figure is essential for a child's health. If attachments to a mother figure are broken or absent then the effects could be serious. However, this can change if the mother figure returns or there is a mother substitute.
1. Bowlby selected 44 thieves and compared them to 44 boys not convicted. He then classed 14 of the thieves as "affectionless psychopaths" , 12 of the 14 affectionless psychopaths had been separated from their mother.
  1. His sample wasn't reprensative and there were only boys so it was gender biased. His data was also retrospective so may be inaccurate. Bowlby may be biased as he was in regular contact with is participants. You cannot assume cause and effect.
Rutter suggested that a child separated due to a divorce, or due to an addiction such as alcohol had a worse impact on the child. He did an experiment with 2000 boys and looked at the relationship between separation and delinquency. If separation was due to psychological disorders of the parent, the boys were four times more likely to become delinquent. The stress before the separation is the likely factor.
1. The data was collected retrospectively so may not be accurate. Cause and effect cannot be estabalished. It is gender biased.
Goldfarb looked at the effects of being raised in an institution. The first group had been fostered after being separated from their mother immediately. The second group had been in the institution for six months to 3.5 years. The second group had a lower IQ and were less able to form relationships and less likely to follow rules.
1. There may have been individual differences in the two groups, for example IQ and attractiveness. Goldfarb also argued that problems with the second group were from a failure to attach as an infant, but it is thought it could be down to the conditions that they were raised in the institution, the infants were given little contact apart from feeding and changing for the first 9 months in their life.
Spitz and Wolf studied 100 children who had been depressed after hospitalisation. A full recovery was usually made if they had stayed in hospital for less than 3 months
1. However this experiment was carried out in the 1940's where hospital care was a lot different.
Spitz studied in poor orphanages in South America and found that many of the children showed little affection. The children in the orphanage were shown little attention so no attachment was formed.
Dougal found that children who had spent more than a week in hopsital before the age of 4 were more likely to have behaviour problems as a teenager and to be poor readers.
Rutter suggested that Bowlby couldn't define the difference between privation and deprivation.

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Bowlby's Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis

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