Disruption of attachment bowlby - long term disruption

The effects of:

disruption of attachment

failure to form attachment (privation)

institutional care

“Prolonged deprivation of a young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character …similar in form… to deprivation of vitamins in infancy.”

Bowlby (1953)

Based on Bowlby’s ideas:Attachment is essential for healthy developmentMust occur within sensitive period

Predicts developmental difficulty if the attachment relationship goes wrong:General developmental problemsSpecific issues with social development

Spitz (1945)

Children in orphanagesFound signs of ‘anaclitic

depression’: apathy, withdrawal, helplessness, low appetite

Survival rates of children raised in prison were better than those raised in orphanages

Spitz & Wolf (1946)

100 psychologically normal children in long-term hospital care

Most showed signs of depressionRecovered quickly if period of

hospitalisation was less than 3 months

Aim – To test the MDH by comparing a group of ‘thieves’ to another group of children to see if the ‘thieves’ had experienced early separations from their caregiver.

Procedure – the children and their parents were interviewed by Bowlby. Information was collected about their early life experiences.

Disruption of Attachment (long-term)- Bowlby 1944

Findings 88 emotionally maladjusted 5-16y olds

44 thieves 44 controls

16 28Affectionless not

Psychopaths

86% 17% 4%had frequent early separations from mother

Bowlby 1944

What did he conclude?

Lack of moral constraints on

behaviour

Inability to form relationships with

others

Delinquent or criminal behaviour

Evaluation

Information was collected retrospectively -it is likely that such recall was not accurate lack of internal validity

People often do not answer an interviewer’s question truthfully – the parents may have wanted to present themselves in a better light (social desirability bias) lack of validity. Bowlby was biased in his observations too.

Used correlation, so we cannot say that early separations were the cause of the behaviour, we can only say they are linked – might be vice versa.

Bowlby 1944

So...

Separation = a physical separation from caregiver, where alternative emotional care is substituted

No long-term problems

Deprivation = a loss of emotional care that accompanies separation from the caregiver, occurring when no (or inadequate) alternative emotional care is offered

emotional maladjustment

But...

Deprivation – an attachment forms but is then discontinued

whereasPrivation – no opportunity is given for attachments to form