3.5.1 Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation

Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation (MDH) explains what happens when an attachment is broken between an infant and their mother or mother figure, known as the primary caregiver

Bowlby (1953) said "mother-love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health"

• Monotropy: Infants form a single, unique attachment bond with their mother and Bowlby claimed this is needed for the healthy psychological development of infants
• Maternal deprivation: The consequences, in terms of both emotional and intellectual development,  caused by the separation between a child and their mother or mother substitute can be very serious and lead to many psychological and relationship issues in later life
• Separation: This is when the child is not in the presence of the primary caregiver, brief separations and, especially when the child is with a substitute caregiver, do not have a significant impact on the Child's development
  • The examiner may refer to this as disruption of attachment as it is an interchangeable term
• Deprivation: This is when the child is deprived of either their primary caregiver as a whole or elements of their emotional care, which leads to developmental issues with the child. They have had a primary caregiver but this has been interrupted, permanently
• Privation is different from deprivation in that the infant never has a primary caregiver figure, and so never even gets close to forming an attachment

The Theory of maternal deprivation

• Bowlby's theory looks at how early experiences may interfere with the processes of attachment formation
• Bowlby used the term maternal deprivation for the long-term separation or loss of a mother
• The critical period: If an attachment is disrupted or not formed with a mother figure (who provides adequate care) in the first 30 months of life (from birth) then it is too late and the child will possibly never form any attachments at all
• Bowlby believed psychological damage was inevitable past this point, and he also claimed there was a risk up until the age of 5

Consequences of deprivation

• Delayed social development: Behaviour is often delinquent and outside of social norms
• Delayed intellectual development: Due to the deprivation, children often have low cognitive functions and a low IQ 
• Delayed emotional development: Bowlby claimed that children who had maternal deprivation could not experience guilt or strong emotion is known as affectionless psychopathy
• Affectionless psychopaths lack any remorse for their actions, and as the condition is untreatable, it can have serious consequences for those around the sufferer

Bowlby's 44 thieves study 

Aim

To examine the links between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy

Procedure

• Sample: 44 participants, consisting of teenage criminals accused of stealing
• Participants were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy (lack of guilt for their actions, lack of empathy for their victims, lack of affection)
• Researchers also interviewed the participant's families to see if there was prolonged early separation (deprivation) from their mothers/ mother figure
• There was a control group of 44 non-criminal teenagers who had emotional problems were also assessed to see how maternal deprivation affected the children who were not thieves

Results

• 14 of the thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths
• 12 of the 14 had been affected by prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives
• Only 2 in the non-criminal group were subjected to prolonged separation
• None of the control group were diagnosed as affectionless psychopaths

Conclusions

It suggests that affectionless psychopathy and thieving behaviour are linked to the periods of separation they experienced from their mother/mother figure in early life   

Evaluation of Bowlby's 44 thieves study

Strengths 

• Bowlby's maternal deprivation research and research on attachment led to many policy changes around institutions and how they treated children
• Improving child welfare and ensuring it remains a focus became a key part of the child welfare policies based on this research
• Children in the hospital were allowed to have their PCG  stay with them, whereas before they were only allowed in during visiting hours
• There was also an increase in the ratio of childcare workers per child and children were also allocated a key worker/nurse who would be there for them during their hospital stay
• Other research  supports Bowlby and shows t the impact of maternal deprivation 
• Gao et al. (2010) partially supported Bowlby, showing poor quality maternal care is linked with high rates of the psychopath in adults

Limitations

• Researcher bias, Bowlby himself carried out the interviews and research, which means he already knew what he was looking for from which teenagers 
• Bowlby used a lot of animal research to determine behaviour and  then applied it to humans; however, humans have significant differences both biologically and psychologically, even compared to our closest evolutionary relatives, which shows that human behaviour cannot be explained by studying animals 
• Bowlby confuses early experiences of deprivation and privation
• Rutter (1981) drew a distinct difference between them and pointed out that the severe damage Bowlby suggests happens with deprivation, is actually more likely due to privation
  • Deprivation: The loss of the primary attachment figure after the attachment has been developed 
  • Privation: The failure to form any form of attachment in the first place
• Most attempts to replicate Bowlby's study have failed to produce similar results, Lewis (1954) found no association between separation and psychopathy in the 500 young people she studied