Flashcards
Romanian orphan studies
Cards in this deck (13)
- 1What is institutionalisation?The effects of living in an institution e.g. a hospital or orphanage where children live for long periods of time
Often little emotional care provided
We're interested in the effects of institutional care on children's attachment and development - 2What is an orphan study?Children placed in care because their parents cannot look after them
An orphan is a child who's parents have died or abandoned them - 3Who researched Romanian orphans who'd been adopted into English families?Rutter et al
- 4What was Rutter's procedure?He followed 165 Romanian orphans adopted in Britain to see if good care could make up for early poor care
Physical, cognitive and emotional development was assessed at ages 4, 6, 11 and 15
52 British children adopted around the same time acted as a control group - 5What did they find in terms of intellectual achievement?When the orphans first arrived they had delayed intellectual development and were mostly undernourished
At age 11 the children showed different rates of recovery depending on when they were adopted
Av IQ if adopted before 6 months=102
Av IQ if adopted 6 mths-2yrs=86
Av IQ if adopted after 2yrs=77 - 6What did they find in terms of attachmentThose adopted AFTER 6 mths old showed disinhibited attachment (attention seeking, clingy, and social behaviour towards adults)
Those adopted BEFORE 6 mths rarely displayed disinhibited attachment - 7What was the procedure of the Bucharest early intervention project?Zeanah et al assessed 95 children ages 12-31 mths who'd spent 90% of their life in care
Compared to control group of 50 children who's never been in an inst'
Strange situation used to measure attachment
Carers were also asked about unusual behaviour (linked to disinhibted attachment) - 8What did Zeanah find?They found that 74% of the control came out as securely attached
19% of the inst' group were securely attached
65% classified as disorganised attachment
44% showed disinhibited attachment as opposed to less than 20% of controls - 9What are the 2 main effects of institutionalisation?Disinhibited attachment - equally friendly to whoever is affectionate towards them, adaption of living with many caregivers
Mental retardation - In Rutter's study most of the children showed signs of this. Like emotional development, damage to intellectual development can be recovered provided adoption is before 6 mths (age attachments form) - 10Evaluation Real life applicationStrength
Both institutional care and adoption practice have been improved using lessons from Romanian orphans
Useful to helping people - 11Evaluation Fewer extraneous variablesStrength
Romanian orphans had fewer negative influences other than institutionalisation than e.g. war orphans - 12Evaluation Romanian orphans not typicalConditions were so bad that results may not be easily generalised to better institutions - this may be the worst outcomes of living in an institution
- 13Evaluation Ethical issuesChildren were randomly assigned to conditions in the Bucharest early intervention project
This means that the children who would have been fostered had this opportunity removed, this means that they may have been allocated to a condition which is likely to cause more harm - ethical issue
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- A-Level Psychology Year 1 (Attachment) Flashcards on Romanian orphan studies, created by Mollie Thompson on 02/06/2017.
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- Mollie Thompson
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