Studies in detail:

Bowlby (1946) '44 Juvinile Thieves':

Aim: To see if affectionless psychopathy was linked to early deprivation
Method/procedure:
44 teenage boy criminal offenders were referred to the CGC where Bowlby worked
Bowlby interviewed them to see whether they showed signs of affectionless psychopathy. (a.p.)
the characteristics of a.p. were operationalised- showing little affection towards others, lack or
guilt or shame for their actions and lack of empathy
Bowlby interviewed the families of the boys to see whether the boys had suffered short-term
deprivation in the first 2 years
Bowlby then matched up those that were a.p with those who had suffered deprivation
a control group of no-delinquent young people was established to see how common deprivation
was in no-dilinquent individuals
Results:
of the 44, 14 were identified as a.p
12 out of 14 had experienced maternal deprivation
5 out of 30 had experienced maternal dep. but were not a.p.
of the 44 in the control group, 2 had experienced maternal dep.
Conclusions:
seperation from the mother in the first two years of childhood, leads to a.p
Evaluation:
+ supports Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis and Freud's psychodynamic approach
+ fairly generalisable due to the sample of 44 plus the 44 in the control group but not a range of
ages so cannot generalise to the wider population.
+ control group means the results are more valid as there was a baseline to compare the
offenders to.
+ Application- shows the importance of early childhood so helps parents to be better parents
-Bowlby conducted the interviews himself so experimentor biased may have occured
- family may not have told the truth in interviews as they did not want to look like bad parents
- not an experiment and is a correlational study so no true cause and effect relationship
established
- there may have been other variables which lead to a.p such as family reordering or family
conflict.
Curtiss (1977) Genie- a case if extreme privation
Aim: To help the feral child, Genie and to see whether a child of 13 could learn language. Also to
see if privation is reversable
Background:
born in L.A in 1957
Genie was told she may be retarded at 20 months so her father kept her isolated inside her
bedroom
by day she was tied to a potty chair and tied into a sleeping bag at night
Genie was beaten when she tried to communicate
her mother and brother were also prevented from talking to her
Procedure:
Information was gained by working with and observing Genie. They also conducted language
tests
Weekly interviews with Genie's mother but she seemed to say what the soical workers wanted
her to say
Daily doctors reports, video tapes and recordings were made
Genie was rescued at 13
Genie had little speech and was afraid of adults
was in a children's hospital where she became more social and developed cognitively and
intellectually
she showed progress and developed her vocabulary as well as her number skills. However, she
could not put the vocab. in a grammatical sentence.
she was moved to a rehabilitation centre where she contunued to show progress but she had
delayed responses
after a few months, she played, enjoyed day trips and showed attachment towards the
psychologists
when the funding for the study stopped, Curtiss returned her to social services and was cared for
in many foster homes
in one of the homes, she was physically abused again which made her regress into her original
emotional state and silence
briefly returned to Curtiss and the team before going to a residential home where she was not
allowed to see the psychologists..
Interpretation:
Genie suffered Privation as a result of being seperated from her mother and being kept isolated
from everyone.
She missed stimulation (toys, games) and attachment in the critical period which hindered her
language skills.
she also missed the sensitive period where a particular event is supposed to happen
abuse by her father damaged her emotional and cognitive development
Conclusions:
Privation is not reversable as Genie never gained normal language, however, psychologists were
unable to chase her progress after she was fostered.
Genie's case supported the idea that there is a crtical period for 'normal' language deveopment.
Evaluation:
+ case study method means this study is rich in data as so much data was gathared.
Triangulation gathared qualitative and quantitative data. High validity
+ Ethics: gave Genei a pseudonyum so that she could not be recognised and the family could
not be chased. Her privacy was protected so she could live anonymousley after the study.
+supports Bowlby's attachment theory- no attachment can lead to retardation/developmental
problems
+the study did aim to help Genie and it seemed to as she had a happier way of life as she was
able to go on day trips, socialise and learn things. Curtiss even grew fond of Genie and Genie
seemed to show attachment to the psychologists too.
- Generalisability is low as this is a one off case, however, there have been many other cases
such as the Czech twins who seemed have their privation reversed
- study could not show whether Genie would have developed normally with good socialisation.
She may not have developed problems because of her experience but because of initial
developmental problems
-Ethics: Genie was the 'subject' of a study and was subjected to testing and questioning. This
could be taking advantage of her and not treating her properly
-no informed consent, right to withdraw or bedriefing. Testing is not a normal part of rehabilitation




Effects of deprivation and privation
Attachments can be damaged if the relationship between the caregiver and infant is broken.
Much research has focused on the effect of this brake on future development.
It is important that you clearly understand the different terms involved here. Practice the terms by
trying this next exercise.
Drag the words next to the correct definitions and then mark your answer to see how you
got on:
Deprivation is when a attatchment is formed but then is interupted or taken away. For example,
when a parent passes away. Separation is when an attachment is taken away yet this may not
be harmful. For example, when parents divorce. The key point is that the child still has at least 1
main attachment type, either mum or dad. Privation is when an attachment never forms atall. For
example, Romanian Oprhans.
The effects of separation
Separation could be considered the same as short-term deprivation. Robertson and Bowlby
(1952) investigated its effects on young children separated from their mothers. They found that
the distress felt by the children fell into three categories called theprotest-despair-detachment
(PDD) model.
The 3 stages of distress are PROTEST, DISPAIR AND DETATCHMENT. 1. Protest- The infant
will start kicking, screaming, protesting when mother or father leaves, as seen when child is left
at Nursery. 2. Dispair - Child will show little interested in his/her environment and seem to have
calmed down. 3. Detatchment - Child's interaction will increase with other children, but this will be
superfically and child will show little interest in parent's return.
The child seems to hide its distress during despair and detachment rather than being content
with the separation.
However, not all children pass through all three stages. In fact, some children may respond in a
different way altogether - there are wide individual differences based on factors such as
personality, age, gender and past experiences.
The effects of deprivation
Short-term effects of deprivation are highlighted above but what are the long-term
consequences of a lost attachment?
Again, Bowlby has been very influential in this area. His maternal deprivation hypothesis states
that long-term intellectual, social and emotional damage follows the deprivation of an attachment
during a critical period in the child's development.
This view is supported by Bowlby's research into the case histories of 44 juvenile
thieves (Bowlby, 1946). He found that 86% of thieves exhibiting affectionless psychopathy had
spent considerable time in hospitals or foster homes as infants. Only 17% of non-affectionless
thieves had the same experiences. Bowlby concluded that disruption during attachment
formation was responsible for the poor emotional development.
Although this research had massive influence, it relied on retrospective evidence and the degree
of separation varied greatly between the infants. Also, Bowlby had not considered the differences
between deprivation and privation and their different consequences (Rutter, 1981).
More support for Bowlby came from research showing that children raised in institutions have
reduced intelligence (Goldfarb, 1943) and some evidence of depression (Spitz and Wolf, 1946).
However, these problems may have occurred as a result of poor environmental stimulation in the
institutions rather than a lack of attachment.
The effects of privation
Research into privation tends to involve carefully studying individuals who have experienced a
privated infancy. These include case studies of tragically neglected children and longitudinal
studies of institutionalised children, such as orphans.
The table below summarises two of the more important case studies:
Study:Description:Evaluation: Czech twins(Koluchova, 1972, 1991)
Aged 2 - Identical twin boys locked in cellar and abused for 6 years leading to physical and
linguistic problems.
Aged 9 - adopted into a loving family.
Aged 14 - normal behaviour.
Aged 20 - emotionally and socially stable with above average intelligence.
- Cannot generalise findings to the whole population.
- Retrospective evidence.
- Were able to bond emotionally with each other.
- Were able to recover once put into a loving home.
Genie (Curtiss, 1989),
Girl locked in a room for most of early life with little outside contact.
Aged 13 - physical problems, poor social skills and no language abilities.
Education led to the recovery of much ability but language and social skills remained poor.
- Cannot generalise findings.
- Retrospective evidence.
- Genie may have had innate psychological problems.
- A series of carers meant that Genie continued to lack a stable, loving home.
A particularly important piece of research involved a longitudinal study of children who had spent
their early childhood in institutional care and, consequently, had been unable to form
attachments (Hodges and Tizard, 1989):
Aim...
To investigate the long-term effects of early institutional care.
Method...
Longitudinal study and natural experiment. Children aged younger than 4 months at start.
Received good physical care but formation of attachments was discouraged. Some children
stayed in the institution, others were adopted and some returned (restored) to their families.
Results...
Aged 16, relationships between adopted children and parents did not differ much from a control
group of non-adopted families but were considerably better bonded than restored children and
parents. Unlike non-adopted children, adopted and restored children had similar problems in
forming relationships outside the family.
Conclusions...
Adopted children form better relationships with their families than restored children (possibly
owing to the greater desire of the adopting parents to make those relationships work).
Adopted and restored children experience problems forming relationships outside the home
(possibly owing to low self-esteem or poor emotional development caused by early experiences).
Evaluation...
A wide variation in relaionship formation meant that some adopted children did badly and some
restored children did well. This means that individual differences are important factors.
A biased sample was left at the end of the study because greater numbers of well adjusted
restored children and maladjusted adopted children dropped out.
The evidence suggests that early childhood experiences (including privation) can be overcome
later in life, provided the conditions are right. This contradicts Bowlby's view of a critical period
during which time children develop attachments that provide a model for future relationships and
ensure healthy emotional and social development.
Much research focuses on the negative effects of early childhood experiences. It is the factors
that allow healthy development to occur in some people, despite early deprivation or privation,
which need to be investigated.