Bowlby - 44 thieves
- Created by: georgiasadler
- Created on: 08-03-15 16:14
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- BOWLBY - 44 THIEVES - 1946
- Aim
- Provide evidence to support his maternal deprivation hypothesis
- To see if there is a link between maternal deprivation and delinquency
- Design
- Retrospective study
- Comparing experiences of prolonged separation from mother under the age of 5
- Group of 44 thieves and a matched group of 44 emotionally disturbed youngsters who had committed no crimes
- Comparing experiences of prolonged separation from mother under the age of 5
- Retrospective study
- Sample
- 44 thieves attending Tavistock Clinic
- Referred in different ways
- 22 by schools
- 2 by schools but at parent's request
- 8 directly by parents
- 3 as court orders
- 9 by probation officers
- 50% described as chronic and serious offenders
- 16% had been stealing for more than 3 years
- Nearly 20% only been involved in stealing a few times
- 10% only involved in 1 incident
- 34% under 9 years old
- 50'% under 11 years old
- only 1 been charged
- Referred in different ways
- Control group
- 44 maladjusted children
- Didn't steal or commit other crimes
- Matched on age and intelligence
- 44 maladjusted children
- 75% male & 25% female
- not representative of normal clinic intake - 60% male, 40% female
- Intelligence was relatively high in both groups
- About a third above average
- 44 thieves attending Tavistock Clinic
- Procedure
- Unstructured interviews
- Qualitative data about childhood
- IQ tests
- Psychiatric assessments with a social worker
- Bowlby interviewed boys and their mothers
- Childhood experiences of separation
- Effects on child's relationships
- Case conferences
- Tentative diagnoses made
- Follow up interviews
- Psychotherapy provided
- Checklist to diagnose affectionless psychopathy
- Inability to experience emotionally intense relationships
- Lack of affectionate behaviour
- Lack of guilt and remorse when causing distress to others
- Unstructured interviews
- Results
- Thieves
- 32% affectionless psychopaths
- 86% experienced early separation
- 20% depressed
- Less than 5% classed as normal
- 17% without affectionless psychopathy experiences maternal deprivation
- 32% affectionless psychopaths
- Control group
- 0% affectionless psychopaths
- 30% depressed
- 20% overly conscientious
- 4% experienced separations during critical period
- Thieves
- Conclusions
- Maternal deprivation can have severe and potentially long term effects on emotional development
- Bowlby said once attachment was broken, negative effects could not be reversed
- Criticisms
- Generalisability
- sample wasnt representative of normal clinic intake
- Case study
- unique findings
- hard to generalise
- unique findings
- Validity
- Reconstructive memory
- Retrospective data
- Social desirability bias
- Not answer honestly to show themselves in a better light
- Researcher bias
- Bowlby did interviews knowing who was in which group
- Reconstructive memory
- Cause and effect
- Correlational
- cannot find cause and effect
- Correlational
- Generalisability
- Aim
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