When considering whether maternal deprivation in infancy has long-term effects on social and emotional development, we have to first understand attachment is.
Attachment can be defined as a “long-enduring, emotionally meaningful tie to a particular individual” (Gross and Rolls, pp!!!!!!, 2008).
Bowlby – a key figure in the study of attachment – strongly believed that attachment behaviours provide the evolutionary advantage of protection. He hypothesised that we developed a gene to code for attachment, this gene, he speculated, turns on at the start of the crawling phase and subsequently switches off at approximately 3.5 years old – He called this time frame a critical period.
This critical period was pivotal to Bowlbys ' theory, he thought that if an attachment was broken or not …show more content…
Rutter observed cases of maternal deprivation and found that in the cases where the child had a secure and loving attachment, separation bares no relevance; yet when the attachment was insecure the separation caused markedly more issues (Woods, 2006). A correlation was found between high family discord and anti-social behaviour.
Despite the fact that this study was not gender standardised and the various other limitations, this is extremely strong evidence against Bowlbys ' (1944) theory, which focused on the breaking of attachments being the most damaging factor. Although it only shows a correlation, the fact that – the results revealed a higher level of anti-social boys from disordered families with no separations, than from stable families where both parents had departed – strongly supports the notion that the negative effects of maternal deprivation are relative to the level of family
Attachment can be defined as a “long-enduring, emotionally meaningful tie to a particular individual” (Gross and Rolls, pp!!!!!!, 2008).
Bowlby – a key figure in the study of attachment – strongly believed that attachment behaviours provide the evolutionary advantage of protection. He hypothesised that we developed a gene to code for attachment, this gene, he speculated, turns on at the start of the crawling phase and subsequently switches off at approximately 3.5 years old – He called this time frame a critical period.
This critical period was pivotal to Bowlbys ' theory, he thought that if an attachment was broken or not …show more content…
Rutter observed cases of maternal deprivation and found that in the cases where the child had a secure and loving attachment, separation bares no relevance; yet when the attachment was insecure the separation caused markedly more issues (Woods, 2006). A correlation was found between high family discord and anti-social behaviour.
Despite the fact that this study was not gender standardised and the various other limitations, this is extremely strong evidence against Bowlbys ' (1944) theory, which focused on the breaking of attachments being the most damaging factor. Although it only shows a correlation, the fact that – the results revealed a higher level of anti-social boys from disordered families with no separations, than from stable families where both parents had departed – strongly supports the notion that the negative effects of maternal deprivation are relative to the level of family