Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation

What did Bowlby propose?

He proposed that children deprived of an early, strong attachment may suffer permanent long-term emotional maladjustment.

AQA definition of ‘maternal deprivation’

Refers to the loss of emotional care that is typically provided by the mother as a primary caregiver which results in attachment being disrupted or broken.

The value of maternal care

Bowlby believed it wasn’t enough to make sure an infant was fed and kept safe and warm.

He argued that infants needed a ‘warm, intimate and continuous relationship’ with a mother or mother substitute.

Critical period as part of maternal deprivation

He says the critical period is important for healthy psychological and emotional development and is two and a half years, potentially up to five years of age.

Bowlby believed that. if a child is denied care because of frequent and/or prolonged separations it will result in negative or irreversible consequences, affecting the infants social, emotional and intellectual skills.

Separation will only have an effect is separation happens before the age of two and a half to five years and there is no substitute mother available.

Consequences

Delinquency- due to disrupted social development behaviour is often outside of social norms e.g. petty crime.

Affectionless psychopathy- due to disrupted emotional development children are unable to show caring behaviours to others, for others feelings and don’t show remorse.

Low IQ- due to disrupted intellectual development cognitive abilities are low

Zero Internal Working Model

If you are repeatedly separated from your mother or you have prolonged separations, you will have a zero IWM. This leads to unsuccessful childhood and adulthood relationships and issues with parenting skills.

Bowlby’s (1944) 44 Juvenile Thieves (Procedure)

-Studied 88 maladjusted children

-44 had been caught stealing and the other half were a control group.

-Bowlby suggested that some of the ‘thieves’ were affectionless psychopaths as they lacked normal signs of affection, shame or sense of responsibility

-These characteristics enabled them to be thieves because it didn’t matter to them

Bowlby’s (1944) 44 Juvenile Thieves (Findings)

-Bowlby found that those who were diagnosed as affectionless thieves had experienced frequent early separations from their mothers.

-86% of the AT experienced frequent separations compared to 17% of the other thieves.

-Almost none of the control group experienced frequent separations whereas 39% of all the thieves had experienced frequent separations.

-These findings suggest that early separations are linked to affectionless psychopathy and that a lack of continuous care may well cause emotional maladjustment.

AO3 Physical and emotional separation