PRIVATION

PRIVATION

1. PROCEDURE

   • 65 Children who were placed in an institution aged under 4 months were studied.
     • At age 4: 15 had been restored to their mothers and 24 adopted.
       • They were compared to a control group of children raised in a normal home environment.
         • Interviews were conducted with the children, teachers, parents and peers.
     • They had excellent physical care but no opportunity to form an attachment, so they experienced privation.

2. FINDINGS

   • There were differences between the ex-institutional children and the control group however they were not affectionless psychopaths like bolwby predicted.
     • AGE 4: The restored and adopted children were more attention seeking and indiscriminately affectionate than control group
     • AGE 16: The restored children had a less close attachment than the adopted and both groups were less likely to fit into a crowd, be liked by other children and have a special friend.
     • AGE 8: All children had a close relationship with parents but the ex-institutional children were more ttention seeking from adults.

3. EVALUATION

   • VALIDITY: It has high validity because the situation is naturally occurring and couldn't be set up deliberately due to ethical reasons.
   • ATTRITION: By the end of the study over 20 of the children could not be found- this is known as a drop out rate which makes the sample unrepresentative making it hard to generalise the results. (lowers validity)

4. AIM: investigate the effects of privation on later social and emotional development.