Discuss the Consequences of Privation. (12 marks)
Privation occurs if a child is deprived the chance of forming an attachment relationship with another person. The consequences of this can be detrimental to the child’s wellbeing and ability to develop.
One consequence of privation is that it could lead to affectionless psychopathy, delinquency and low IQ, as suggested by Bowlby (1946). Bowlby conducted an experiment where he interviewed 44 juvenile thieves, asking them about themselves, their behaviour and childhood experiences. The results showed 14 of the individuals as showing signs of being an affectionless psychopath, of which 12 had been separated from their mothers for a long period of time during the first 2 years of their life. Bowlby concluded from this that delinquency is linked to childhood maternal deprivation, as the delinquents were more likely than the average population to have been deprived in their childhood. However, Schaffer and Emerson found that children develop more than one strong attachment, which contradicts the suggestion that an absent mother is the cause of delinquency. As well as this, Rutter argued that the there is no simple cause and effect relationship between delinquency and maternal deprivation. He suggested that there were other important variable that need to be considered, like the reason of separation from the mother and how the separation was handled. Another criticism is that Hodges and Tizard’s research would support the idea of a sensitive period, rather than a critical period, as they found that children adopted as late as 7 years old, could establish a strong affectionate relationship.
Another suggested consequence is that it can lead to quasi-autistic behaviour, as proposed by Rutter’s study of Romanian orphans.
Short-term deprivation is also could also lead to anger problems, despair and detachment according to Robertson (1952)