44 thieves stody

44 thieves study

1. Bowlby

2. 1944

3. Method

   • design
     • retrospective study
       • comparing exp. of prolonged seperation from mother (under 5) in a group of 44 thieves & a matched group of 44 emotionally disturbed youngsters who had committed crimes
   • Sample
     • 44 thieves
       • attend tavistock clinic
       • Reffered
         • 22 by schools
         • 2 by school but a parents request
         • 8 directly by parents
         • 3 court orders
         • 9 by probation officers
       • 50% described as chronic and serious offenders
       • 16% stealing more than 3 years
       • 20% only involved in stealing a few times
       • 10% involved in 1 incident
       • 34% of thieves under 9 yrs old
       • 50% under 11
         • only 1 not charged
     • Control group
       • 44 maladjusted children
         • not steal or commit crimes
         • matched for age and intelligence
     • Roughly 75% ppts male 25% female
       • not representative of normal clinic intake which is 60%-40%
     • intelligence relatively high in both groups
       • about a third being above average
   • Procedure
     • Unstructured interviews
       • extremely rich, detailed qualitative data about childhood
     • Children completed IQ tests and had psychiatric assessments for about an hour with a social worker
     • Info about kids shared with Bowlby
       • he then interviewed kids and their mothers for another hour
         • find out about childhood experiences of seperation and effects on children's reationships
     • case conferences followed, tentative diagnosis made
     • further follow up interviews conducted as required
     • psychotherapy provided
     • *checklist to diagnose affectionless psychopathy
       • inability to exp. emotionally intense relationships, lack of affectionate behaviour and specific lack of guilt and remorse when causing distress to others

4. Results

   • 32% thieves - affectionless psychopaths
   • 20% depressed (Th)
   • less than 5% classed as normal (Th)
   • 0% of control group were affectionless psychopaths
   • 30% depressed (c.g)
   • 20% overly conscientious (c.g)
   • affectionless psychopaths 86% experienced early seperation
   • 17% theives without a.p experienced deprivation
   • 4% of non-thieves experienced separations during critical period.

5. Conclusions

   • maternal deprivation have severe and potentially long term effects on emotional developmental including affectionless psychopathy
   • effects can show up years later