James Wood,

Outline and evaluate Bowlbys Maternal Deprivation hypothesis

Bowlbys first hypothesis relating to the attachment model was his maternal deprivation hypothesis (MDH). This hypothesis was the forerunner of the full attachment theory, and was proposed by Bowlby twenty years earlier, in 1953. It was far simpler than the attachment theory, and was criticised and refuted by many other psychologists and their research. The hypothesis suggested that infants need quality, continuous emotional care from their attachment figure (usually the mother) in order to develop into an emotionally stable, healthy adult. The focus on continuous care is central to the whole hypothesis, which states that if a child experiences repeated separations from their primary attachment (or maternal) figure, then their relationship with them will become unstable and unpredictable. Bowlby also suggested that it is essential that this continuous relationship is created and maintained before the critical period of two and a half years, or the child will suffer irreversible psychological damage and increase their risk of becoming emotionally disturbed. Even after this critical period, however, Bowlby felt that there was still a risk of damage to the child if the relationship isnt maintained, and its only after the age of five that children are better able to cope with separations. Bowlby himself did some research into the MDH in his study of forty-four juvenile thieves (1944). The participants in this study were eighty-eight children from the ages of five to sixteen who had been referred to the child guidance clinic where Bowbly worked. Half of these children had been referred because they had been stealing. Of these thieves, Bowlby identified sixteen of them to be affectionless psychopaths, people who had no sense of guilt and who lacked a social conscience. The other half of the children had not committed any crimes and none of them were identified as affectionless psychopaths. After interviewing the children and their families, Bowlby found that eighty-six per cent of the thieves who were identified as affectionless psychopaths had experience lengthy separations from their mothers at young ages. In comparison, only four per cent of the non-thieves had experienced these kinds of separations. These findings led Bowlby to form a link between the early separations and the antisocial behaviour exhibited by the youths, and so this study supported his hypothesis. However, it must be noted that the evidence is only correlational and so it can only be said that separation and affectionless psychopathy are linked and not that one causes the other. The data was also retrospective and relied largely on the children and their families remembering events from the past; and so none of the data can be particularly relied on as being accurate. It must also be considered that Bowlbys research is biased, as he based his hypothesis off his own findings.

Spitz and Wolf (1946) carried out a study on one hundred supposedly normal children that were hospitalised. They found that all of the children quickly became seriously depressed after being left in the hospital. However, the children that were separated from their parents for less than three months generally recovered well, whilst those that were separated for longer rarely experienced a complete recovery. This study quite strongly supports Bowlbys MDH, as it not only showed that the children became emotionally unstable, IE depressed, when separated from their mothers, but also that shorter separations usually led to the children recovering (hence proving that it is the continuous nature of the attachment/relationship that is important). However, Rutter (1976) insisted that a good deal of the supporting research for the MDH only yielded correlational evidence, and not solid cause and effect. For example, in Bowlbys forty-four thieves study, Bowlby failed to consider other extraneous variables that may have affected the behaviour of the children, such as the childrens diet; the education of both the children and their parents; the wealth/income of the family, etc. Some of Rutters research showed cases where boys had experienced separations as a result of some kind of family disruption, like a divorce. Rutter suggested a hypothesis in place of the MDH. It stated that family discord leading to some form of separation causes emotional maladjustment and delinquency in youths as opposed to just the separation on its own. Overall, while Bowlbys MDH may have relied on retrospective data thus making it rather unreliable, it did have an extremely positive impact on the general post-war mindset about child rearing in general and especially how children should be treated/looked after in hospital. Prior to the publication of Bowlbys hypothesis, children were separated from their parents if they or the parents were hospitalised, as it was believed that it would be more stressful for the children if they kept seeing their parents on-andoff. After, however, many of these anti-visit policies were reformed and from then on, visits were (and still are) strongly encouraged. As well as this, it is encouraged that children bring toys, books, etc. from home to maintain that emotional link while they are away.