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Contemporary Debates

Debate: The Mother as Primary Care-Giver of an Infant — what is at the core of the debate

  • 3 things to know
  • AS Unit 2

Overview

Recall questions on monotropy and internal working model.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Who and when

What did Bowlby (1944) compare in his study of juvenile thieves?

Key term

How does the psychodynamic approach support the mother's special position?

Evaluation

Which biological arguments are used to support the mother as primary care-giver?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is at the core of the debate about the mother as primary care-giver?

    Model answer

    Whether the mother is uniquely necessary as an infant's main attachment figure, or whether the role can be filled equally well by any consistent, sensitive caregiver.

  2. 2

    Define monotropy.

    Model answer

    It is Bowlby's idea that an infant forms one special attachment to a single main caregiver, usually the mother, which is qualitatively different from all its other attachments.

  3. 3

    What did Bowlby (1944) compare in his study of juvenile thieves?

    Model answer

    Forty-four children referred to his clinic for stealing and forty-four emotionally disturbed children who had not stolen, matched for age and intelligence.

  4. 4

    What did Bowlby (1944) find about affectionless character and early separation?

    Model answer

    Fourteen of the thieves were judged to show an affectionless character, and twelve of those fourteen had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in early childhood, against two prolonged separations in the entire control group.

  5. 5

    Why is Bowlby's 1944 study weak evidence that maternal separation causes delinquency?

    Model answer

    It is retrospective and correlational, Bowlby made the diagnoses himself while knowing the children's histories, and separation is confounded with poverty, family conflict and whatever caused the separation.

  6. 6

    State the maternal deprivation hypothesis.

    Model answer

    It is Bowlby's claim that a continuous, warm relationship with a mother figure through the first years is essential, and that breaking it produces lasting emotional and intellectual damage.

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Psychology Past to Present — The Five Approaches
Contemporary Debates
Principles of Research and Application of Research Methods
Mathematical Requirements for Psychology (Appendix A: AS Unit 2 and A2 Unit 4)

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