so far in the attachment unit we've mainly focused on healthy mother and infant attachments but what happens to Children if that mother infant relationship is disrupted what kind of an adult do you become if your mother just isn't really there for you when you need her to find out we'll review John bal's theory of maternal deprivation but we'll also talk about privation and this is the complete absence of any maternal care at all sadly this was experienced by thousands of Romanian babies in the 1980s so how did they turn out is having a primary attachment figure actually that important after all the psych boost flashcard app has a new feature test yourself with over 1,500 multiple choice questions including every topic on a level and gcsc psychology try paper one for free right now and Patron supporters can watch psych boost videos ad free learn from over 17 hours of exclusive exam tutorial videos and access hundreds of digital and printable resources including my Maps quiz sheets worksheets teaching slides and more bal's theory of maternal deprivation in this attachment class we're back to talking about the work of John Balby hopefully you remember he used the term monotropy to explain an infant's uniquely strong bond with its mother the mother represents a secure base for the child imagine her as a child's safety net they can explore but they've always got a comforting place to return to if things get overwhelming while we argued there's a Time clock for forming a monotropic bond a critical period lasting up to 30 months post birth if for some reason this unique bond is interrupted in this time period BBY believe that the child has experience maternal deprivation and in later life will have severe problems in how they navigate social situations manage their emotions and even think and learn while a critical period is up to 2 and a half years according to BBY he thinks there is still some risk from deprivation up to 5 years to be more precise about the consequences of deprivation Balby claimed deprivation would lead to poor Social Development resulting in Behavior outside of societal Norms this might include delinquency which is committing minor criminal acts like fever maternal deprivation also hinders emotional development and can result in affectional psychopathy a lack of affection or Genuine care for others these individuals might not experience empathy for other people's feelings or show remorse for their harmful actions impairment and intellectual development may cause these children to like behind their peers in cognitive skills as shown by lower IQ Bobby says this initial bond with the mother forms a foundation for how the individual perceives and engages in future relationships this is because it creates a schema about how relationships work this is the internal working model building on this the continuity hypothesis argues an ineffective internal working model results in challenges in forming healthy relationships later in life and even difficulties in parenting Offspring evaluations bal's 44 feed study was his attempt to support his feal maternal deprivation empirically he compared emotionally disturbed boys who were thieves to similar boys who know as predicted by deprivation theory he found the thieves were more likely to have experienced prolonged separation from the primary caregiver during the critical period and were more likely to be affectional with Psychopaths these results suggested a link between deprivation delinquency and affectional psychopathy the 44 feed study and similar research on depr are correlational as controlled experiments are impossible in this area this means Bobby's research can't establish causation factors such as socioeconomic status family criminal history or inherited mental health conditions could have influenced a likelihood of maternal deprivation in infancy and later offending by the children bal's attachment theory has had real world impacts influencing public policy and social welfare systems hospitals for example altered visitor policies for hospitalized children to allow for a consistent caregiver presence however these positive changes have had economic implications such as the rising cost of nursery care the social sensitivity of B's theory is also important to consider the emphasis on maternal deprivation has led to increased maternity leave as opposed to paternity or shared parental leave potentially reinforcing traditional gender roles in the home and ultimately increasing the gender pay Gap at work linked to this point Bob's emphasis on the as the primary attachment figure has been criticized as gender biased while infants may experience maternal deprivation this focus on the mother potentially downplays the contribution fathers and other caregivers can make in a child's emotional development Schaffer and others have found that infants can form multiple strong attachments and researchers such as field have found that fathers can provide adequate care we're about to cover orphan studies the children in these studies experience privation a far worse experience than maternal deprivation and we can use their results to counter Balby as well findings from these studies do show early attachments are vital for healthy development they also offer the potential for Recovery if a child is given appropriate care and intervention these orphan researchers suggest it might be more accurate to view the first few years as a sensitive period not a critical period Romanian orphan studies effects of institutionalization institutionalization refers to children being brought up under the state's care typically in facilities like children's homes or hospitals extended periods in these settings can mold a child's Behavior they often adapt to the structured rules and Norms in these institutions given that these institutions can't offer the same level of emotional care as families there are concerns about negative long-term implications on the development of children who live here firstly we should make clear the distinction between the maternal deprivation we've just covered with Balby and what we're about to talk about privation deprivation refers to insufficient emotional care due to frequent or prolonged absences of the primary attachment figure privation is the complete absence of emotional care meaning the child cannot form any attachment Bond at all the end of the Romanian revolution in 1990 revealed an absolutely heartbreaking reality it was estimated that around 170,000 children were abandoned and living in horrific conditions in orphanages before the Revolution women in Romania were encouraged to have as many babies as possible these lowincome families were unable to look after their children so they gave them to the state and they were raised in what were effectively warehouses with too few nurses looking after too many infants many infants were severely malnourished and many experienced abuse and none of them were cared for emotionally a large number of Orphans were adopted by families from around the world including the UK R's erra study from 1998 to 2011 was a longitudinal research study that followed the development of 165 Romanian orphans who found new homes with British families the study's design which observed children adopted different ages was a natural experiment and revealed the long-term impacts of early privation the infants rout followed up was split into three groups those adopted before they turned 6 months those adopted between 6 months and 2 years and those adopted after 2 years their development was compared to a control group of British adoptees who hadn't experienced privation the children's progress was then carefully assessed to ages 4 6 11 and 15 we should be aware of the main findings at age six it's typical for children to be cautious around strangers but those adopted after 6 months displayed disinhibited attachment meaning they were unusually friendly towards unfamiliar adults this trait was most common among children adopted after the age of two at age 11 over half of the children who had disinhibited attachment at age six continued showing this Behavior children adopted after 6 months also showed delayed physical emotional and intellectual growth the difference in intellectual development was huge children adopted after 24 months had an average IQ of 77 whereas those adopted before 6 months had a normal IQ averaging 102 a few children who were adopted late exhibited quasi autistic Tendencies struggling to comprehend social contacts the intellectual challenges in the late adoped group was still present at the 15-year followup rut's study shows the importance of early adoption the age at which a child's adopted plays a critical role in their ability to recover from the detrimental effects of privation the adverse impacts of prolonged institutional privation are severe and long-lasting however many children even those adopted after the age of two showed significant recovery when cared for by adopted families as I mentioned in the evaluations of Balby these f findings don't support the idea of a strict critical period suggesting the first few years are more of a flexible sensitive period evaluations the findings from the radian orphan studies resulted in significant shifts in Care and Adoption policies there's a greater emphasis on prioritizing infant care in institutions promoting early adoption and carefully screening potential adoptive families there are issues with how R's erra study was conducted for example one limitation of R study is the non-random nature of adoption selection adopted parents visiting Romania handpick the children they adopted which might have led to a preference of more socialable children so there is a potential for bias with friendlier children being adopted at earlier ages given that the research on these ranian orphans is a work in progress the final understanding of the long-term effects of privation is not fully known developmental advancements may continue enabling children to bridge the gap by adulthood there are observations by other researchers that agree with the underlying theme that the negative effects of institutionalization and privation can be counted with timely and appropriate intervention hoders and tizard 1989 study found that kids adopted into nurturing homes F better in Behavior peer interactions than those returned to the original often hostile families gold forbs in 1947 investigation also agreed comparing two groups one raised in children's homes Beyond free years and another fostered roughly after 6 months this revealed that early fostering enhanced mental agility tested with IQ and sociability when assessed at age 12 I want to thank everyone over on patreon for supporting the channel because of you I've been able to teach part-time meaning I can make psych boost on YouTube for everyone and a special thank you to Kat posnik and ammed Romani for supporting at the developer level I do have extra resources that are exclusive to my patrons so if you decide to sign up you can grab those over my website and these include over a 100 exam question tutorial videos of course including questions on the attachment unit I hope this was helpful and I'll see you in the next psych Boost video