Bowlby's Theory of Maternal 

Deprivation

As early as the 1930's, researchers were beginning to identify the long-term

damage associated with disrupted or limited attachment opportunities.

In Bowlby’s The Origins Of Attachment lecture he alluded to this:

“During the nineteen-thirties and forties a number of clinicians on
both sides of the Atlantic, mostly working independently of each
other, were making observations of the ill effects on personality
development of prolonged institutional care and/or frequent changes
of mother-figure during the early years of life.”

Bowlby’s (1953) Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis proposed that a

“warm, intimate & continuous relationship with a mother (figure)” is
necessary for healthy psychological/ emotional development.
“Mother-love in infancy/ childhood is as important for mental health
as are vitamins & proteins for physical health.”

Consequences of maternal deprivation include:

 An inability to form attachments in the future (see the Internal
Working Model)
 Affectionless psychopathy (inability to feel remorse)
 Delinquency (behavioural problems in adolescence)
 Problems with Cognitive Development
Bowlby (1944) 44 Juvenile Thieves Study
44 Thieves were compared with 44 Non-thieves from a delinquency
centre. Bowlby collected data via interviews and questionnaires from
the 88 juveniles and found that 17/ 44 thieves had experienced early
prolonged separation from their mothers before 5 years.

15/17 of these thieves were classed as affectionless psychopaths (no

guilt/ remorse), while only 2/44 non-thieves had experienced such
separation. Therefore these findings support the MDH, as there
appears to be a link between disruption to attachments in the first 5
years and later maladjustment.
Bowlby’s subsequent research reported that 60 children who had
spent time apart from their mothers due to tuberculosis prior to the
age of 4, demonstrated lower achievement in school.
Bowlby’s findings indicate that experiencing disrupted attachments
early in life is linked to crime, emotional maladjustment and lower
academic achievement, lending strong support for the MDH.
Evaluation
Strengths:
Practical applications – the MDH and accompanying research has
significant real world applications, as they highlight the importance
of positive attachment experiences and maintaining a mono tropic
bond in the first five years, which have been instrumental in the
developments of good childcare practices. Greater stability in
childcare practice has been developed through daycare centres
assigning caregivers to children and hospital visiting hours have been
reviewed so that children can maintain contact with their parents.
Some national governments offer more financial support for young
families in terms of maternity and paternity leave. For instance,
Sweden offers 480 days parental leave, clearly highlighting its
commitment to support children’s early attachment experiences.
Bowlby summarised some of the key applications that stemmed
from the research in the 1950's, pointing to implications for those
“working in child psychiatry and psychology and in social work, and
some also of those in paediatrics and sick children's nursing,”
(Bowlby 1988).
Weaknesses:
Retrospective recall might be inaccurate - As Bowlby was asking the
adolescent participants to recall separations that they had
experienced years earlier, their responses would have been subject
to inaccuracies/ distortions.

Investigator effects - Bowlby designed and conducted the self-

reports himself and as a result, his presence and interpretation might
have influenced the outcome of the research. Bowlby’s diagnosis of
affectionless psychopathy might have been distorted by researcher
confirmation bias.

Conclusions are correlational - Bowlby found a relationship between

early separation and delinquency/ affectionless psychopathy but we
cannot definitively conclude that the separation was the cause.
There may have been a third unidentified variable that accounted for
the delinquency/ affectionless psychopathy. For example, the
immediate cause of the separation (such as neglect or abuse) might
have been the direct cause of problems experienced at adolescence
rather than the separation itself.

Oversimplified concept - Michael Rutter’s (72) Maternal Deprivation

Re-assessed critiqued Bowlby’s concept of the Maternal Deprivation
Hypothesis. Rutter argues that Bowlby failed to distinguish between
separation from an attachment figure, loss of an attachment figure
and a complete lack of attachment (privation). Rutter argues that the
three circumstances have different long-term effects on which
Bowlby overlooked.