-1Long-Term Effects of Separation

The Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis (1953)

John Bowlby’s (1953) maternal deprivation hypothesis was that breaking the maternal

bond with the child during the early years of its life will have serious and irreversible

effects on its intellectual, social, and emotional development.

Bowlby’s Forty-Four Thieves Study

Bowlby (1944) study a group of children who had been referred to a child guidance clinic

because they were juvenile thieves. He compared them to a control group of children

who had been referred to the clinic because of emotional problems but who had not

committed any crimes. He found that 32% of the juvenile thieves were affectionless

psychopaths (lacking guilt and remorse), whereas none of the children in the control

group were affectionless psychopaths. Of the juvenile thieves who were affectionless

psychopaths, 86% had experienced early separation.

Spitz (1945)

Spitz (1945) studied children in very poor orphanages and other institutions in South

America. The children in these orphanages received little attention from the staff and

many suffered from anaclitic depression (helplessness and loss of appetite). The

anaclitic depression was attributed to their lack of emotional care and separation from

their mothers.

Spitz and Wolf (1946)

Spitz and Wolf (1946) studied 100 children who became seriously depressed after

staying in hospital. The children recovered well if the separation from their mothers

lasted less than three months.

Goldfarb (1947)

Goldfarb (1947) studied two groups of infants. The first group had spent only a few

months at a poor and inadequately staffed orphanage before being fostered. The second

group had spent three years at the same orphanage before being fostered. Both groups

of infants were tested at various times up to the age of 12. Goldfarb found that the

children who had spent three years at the orphanage did less well on intelligence tests,

were less socially mature, and were more likely to be aggressive.

Widdowson (1951)

Widdowson (1951) observed children who suffered from derivation dwarfism. He found

that a change in dietary supplements did not lead to the children gaining weight but a

change in their harsh and unsympathetic supervisor did.

Douglas (1976)

Douglas (1976) found that children who had spent more than a week in hospital before

the age of four, or who had had repeated admissions, were more likely to have

behavioural problems in adolescence and to be poor readers.

Chloe Clarke - AS Psychology