Effects of institutionalism

Institutionalism

Living in an institutional setting.

Institution - A place where people live for long continuous periods of time. In the past they have provided very little emotional care and attachment researchers were interested in the effects of the care on children’s attachment and later development.

Research has enabled us to find ways to reduce any negative effects on the improved institutional care

Research on institutionalisation

Bowlby’s hypothesis was that emotional disturbance stemmed from a lack of care from a mother or mother substitute. One of the situations is when a young child is placed in institutional care and experiences institutionalisation.

44 thieves study involves adolescents who had experienced institutional care and were more likely to be thieves. They showed a lack of ability to show affection, guilt or empathy.

Later researchers have studied the link between institutional care early in life and later emotional and intellectual difficulties.

The English and Romanian Adoptees project

Rutter and colleagues 1998, 2010

Study on effects of institutional care.

Rutter - 165 children adopted by English families. Adoptees from Romania and had spent their early years in institutions. When Nicolae Ceauşescu came into Romanian power, a law in 1966 banned contraception and abortion for women under 40s with < 4 children. Led to large families.

Parents couldn’t keep their children, some went to institutions with poor conditions. After the 1989 Revolution many were adopted some by English parents.

Aim was to investigate the extent to which good care makes up for poor early experiences. Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed when the children were age 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years. Compared with a control group 52 UK children

Effects on attachment

Adopted > 6 months = Disinhibited attachment

Adopted < 6 months = No disinhibited attachment

Disinhibited attachment includes attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed towards all adults.

Rutter explained DA as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during a sensitive period for attachment formation. In poor quality institutions, a child might have 50 carers but doesn’t spend enough time with any of them to form secure attachment.

Later follow-up studies

Songua-Barke 2017

Edwards 2023

Assessed the adoptees at age 22-25, finding a similar pattern of continued emotional difficulties in those adopted late.

Edwards looked specifically parenting and found that only 20% of all the adoptees had become parents and of this group 20% had difficulties as parents. It is possible that the better adjusted adoptees chose to be parents.

Both sets of data suggest a strong lasting effect on development

Effects of institutionalisation

Physical underdevelopment - Physically small (Deprivation dwarfism)

Intellectual underfunctioning - Lower IQ scores

Disinhibited attachment - No discrimination between attachment figures. Acting inappropriately familiar with strangers.

Poor parenting

Effects on IQ

50% of Romanian adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the major majority were severely under nourished. At age 11 the adopted children showed differential rates recovery that were related to the age of adoption.

IQ of adoptees < 6 months - 110

6 months < age < 2 years - 86

Age > 2 years - 77

These differences remained at age 16.

Like emotional development, damaged to intellectual development as a result of institutionalisation can be recovered if adopted before 6 months old

S Practical applications

Showed the importance of key workers so improved the conditions in institutions. This means disinhibited attachment is avoided.

Suggests that institutions are undesirable and other methods are better.

S Internal validity

Few extraneous variables. Many studies were done in orphanages before Rutter but it was a time of war where there was trauma and bereavement.

Rutter purely looked at institutional care.

S Spitz

Studied poorly raised kids in South American orphanages. Staff untrained and overworked. Rarely talked to the children.

Children had anaclitic depression - Reaction to loss of a loved object. Showed signs of fear, sadness and withdrawal

Showed the negative effects of institutional care

W Freud + Dann

Looked at 6 children put in concentration camps at a few months old. No chance to form maternal bonds. Taken to a centre in West Sussex.

Little language and were hostile to adults but gradually became attached. Suggests that severe deprivation can be overcome.