Disruption of Attachment

Disruption of Attachment

1. Deprivation

   • Robertson & Bowlby
     • PDD model, three progressive reactions to separation
       • Protest, then despair, then detachment
     • naturalistic observation of children in residential nurseries
     • concluded that young children suffer distress after separation, but rarely lead to bond disruption
       • Greater separation anxiety most common long-term
     • - Lack of objectivity
     • - individual differences
   • Bowlby
     • 44 thieves study
     • opportunity sample
     • interviewed child thieves and family, 44 thieves and 44 control group
     • 86% of the thieves that were diagnosed as 'affectionless psychopaths' were maternally deprived
     • supports maternal deprivation hypothesis
   • Maternal deprivation hypothesis
     • Affectionless psychopathy
       • lack of concern about others
       • inability to form lasting relationships
       • lack of guilt or remorse

2. Privation (failure to form attachments)

   • Koluchova
     • case study of Czech twins found locked by stepmother in an unheated cellar, from 18 months to age 7
     • the boys couldn't speak, had health problems and were terrified of people
     • they made a full recovery, having an average intelligence and long-lasting relationships with family
   • Curtiss
     • case study of Genie
     • girl found alone at the age of 13, chained to her bed and cruelly forced to stay quiet
     • Genie made little progress to any language development
   • - Case studies, individual cases will limit generalisability
     • + However, case studies can gather lots of different qualitative & quantitative data
   • - Studies involved other physical & emotional abuse as well as privation
   • - Unethical to study young children, cannot understand right to withdraw etc.

3. Institutionalisation

   • Hodges & Tizzard
     • longitudinal study of 65 children taken in care before 4 months
       • assessment included self-report and interviews with parents & teachers
     • - participant attrition, biased sample
     • found that most of the children formed close relationships with new families, challenging Bowlby's idea of sensitive period
     • however, both restored and adopted children struggled to form friendships and were often bullied, supporting Bowlby's internal working model
   • Rutter et al
     • studied longitudinally Romanian orphans adopted by UK families
       • found disinhibited attachment more likely adopted after age of two
     • + supports Bowlby's theory of critical period
     • - Individual differences