AQA A Level Psychology复习笔记3.5.2 Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institutionalisation
Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institutionalisation
- During the 1990s, horrific images flooded the news of children in poor conditions in Romanian orphanages.
- The former Romanian president, Nicolai Ceausescu, had required Romanian women to have 5 children.
- Many Romanian parents could not afford to keep their children and the children ended up in large orphanages, in very poor conditions.
- After the Romanian Revolution of 1989 many of these children were adopted, some by British families.
- However, many of the parents could not afford their children and so many children ended up in orphanages, where they were kept in poor conditions and received little in the way of emotional care.
- This situation gave a tragic opportunity to study the effects of maternal deprivation when a child is in institutional care.
- Institutionalisation: The term relates to living in an institutional setting, like a hospital or an orphanage. People can live here for long, continuous periods of time and there is very little emotional care.
Rutter et al. (2011)
Procedure
- Rutter et al. (2011) conducted a longitudinal study on 165 Romanian orphans adopted by British parents
- Children were split into 4 groups;
- Group 1: 58 children under the age of 6 months
- Group 2: 59 children between the ages of 6 and 24 months
- Group 3: 48 children over 48 months
- Group 4: 52 British adoptees who were the control group
- Each group was assessed at the ages of 4, 6, 11 and 15
- At the start of the observations, over half of the Romanian children were suffering from severe malnutrition and a low IQ, showing delayed intellectual development, compared to the control group
Findings
- Age 6: those adopted after 6 months showed disinhibited attachment (overly friendly behaviour towards unknown adults)
- Age 11: 54% of those children who were adopted after 6 months, that had shown type D: Disinhibited behaviour, still showed disinhibited attachment
- Symptoms of disinhibited attachment include attention seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, whether familiar or unfamiliar.
- Age of adoption was also a key factor in attachment type: Those adopted before 6 months, showed signs of a secure 'normal' attachment, whereas those older than 6 months displayed disinhibited attachment
- Age 11: they found a significant difference between those children adopted before 6 months compared to those adopted later in terms of attachment style and IQ
- The mean IQ score for those adopted before 6 months was 102, compared with a mean score of 86 for those children adopted between 6 months and 2 years but the mean score fell to 77 for those adopted after the age of 2
Conclusions
- Adoption after the first 6 months of life, means the child will have longer-term effects of institutionalisation on the child
- However, recovery is possible if they once they are able to form attachments and instead they may have slower development rather than irreversible damage
- This challenges Bowlby's Theory of Maternal Deprivation as Rutter shows recovery is possible: Difficult but possible
- It has been found that children as old as 9 or 10 made a good recovery if they were adopted by sensitive, loving parents
Exam Tip
Studies on institutionalization are referring to privation but you must make a link to an institution in your response i.e. an orphanage or children's home. Rutter is named on the specification and so you can be asked about his work. Therefore, you need to know at least one study from Rutter and other studies related to him which can serve as an evaluation. Bowlby's 44 thieves is never to be used in a question on institutionalization or privation. There is a common misconception that in the 44 thieves that the children lived in an institution and had suffered from privation. 44 Thieves is a study of Deprivation and MDH but is not relevant here. The same goes for case studies like Genie: Also not relevant and best avoided.
Romanian Orphan Studies: Effects of Institutionalisation Evaluation
| Strengths | Limitations |
| Due to research on institutions and the negative effects they have, policy changes were made to benefit children; for example children's homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each children and instead now have one or two 'key workers' who play a central role in their emotional care.
In the Romanian orphans study there is the lack of confounding variables. The Romanian orphans had, in the main, been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them. The Romanian orphanage study allowed psychologists to study cause and effect, which is usually incredibly hard to do with adoptions studies, as those children being adopted have been removed for neglect or abuse reasons, however, this was not the case with the Romanian orphanages. |
Hodges and Tizard (1989) stated the adverse effects of institutionalisation could be reversed if children were adopted by effective families or had adequate care. They found children who had been adopted by adequate families, often, coped better on measures of behavioural and peer relationships than those children returned to their biological families.
Children were not randomly allocated to conditions in this study, which means the more sociable children could have been adopted first. This study could lack external validity as the quality of care was so poor in the Romanian orphanages that it cannot be compare to others. This means the harmful effects seen in the studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care in general. There is the current lack of adult data on adult development. The latestdata only looks at the children in their early to mid 20s |
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