Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

Question	Answer
What did bowlby propose?	That a “warm, intimate & continuous relationship with a mother (figure)” is necessary for healthy psychological/ emotional development
What are the consequences of Maternal deprivation?	-inability to form attachments in the future -emotional development: Affectionless psychopathy -Intellectual development: lower IQ
What was the study that Bowlby did into Maternal deprivation called?	44 juvenile thieves
What was the method of Bowlby's 44 thieves?	44 Thieves were compared with 44 Non-thieves from a delinquency centre. Bowlby collected data via interviews and questionnaires from the 88 juveniles
What did Bowlby find?	17/ 44 thieves had experienced early prolonged separation 15/17 of these thieves were classed as affectionless psychopaths 2/44 non-thieves had experienced such separation.
What is a limitation of Bowlby's 44 thieves study?	Bowbly carried out the study himself and therefore the study is at risk of investigator effects
What is another limitation of Bowlby's study?	Bowlby found a relationship between early separation and delinquency/ affectionless psychopathy but we cannot definitively conclude that the separation was the cause
What is another limitation of Bowlby's 44 thieves study?	Retrospective recall might be inaccurate - As Bowlby was asking the adolescent participants to recall separations that they had experienced years earlier, their responses would have been subject to inaccuracies/ distortions.

Resource summary

	Created by Elise Lambert over 8 years ago