Institutionalisation (Attachment)

Question 1

What is the case study for insitutionalisation?

Answer 1

The Romanian Orphan crisis

Question 2

What is institutionalisation?

Answer 2

• Deficits or disabilities in social and life skills
• These develop after a person has spent a long period living in hospitals, prisons or other remote insititutions –> like an orphanage.

Question 3

What was the procedure of the study on the Romanian Orphans?

Answer 3

Rutter et al:
- Longitudinal study
- 165 Romanian orphans who had suffered the effects of insitutionalisation and had been adopted (111 before 2, 54 by 4).
- Tested at regular intervals (ages 4, 6, 11, 15) to assess their physical, cognitive and social development.
- Information also gathered in interviews with parents and teachers.
- Findings compared to a control group of 52 British children, adopted before 6.

Question 4

What were the findings of the Romanian Orphan study?

Answer 4

Rutter et al:
= At adoption –> Romanian orphans scored lower than British on measures of physical, cognitive and social development.

= By the age of 4 –> some of the children caught up with the British children, especially those adopted before the age of 6 months.

Followups –> adopted after age of 6 months showed poor attachments and problems with peer relationships.

Question 5

What are Rutter’s effects of institutionalisation?

Answer 5

• Physical underdevelopment–> deprivation dwarfism, lack of emotional care
• Intellectual underfunctioning–> cognitive development affected by emotional deprivation: most adopted before 6 months caught up with control
• Disinhibited attachment–> form of insecure attachment: treat strangers and familiar people in the same way (well cared for = stranger anxiety) - adaption to living with multiple carers
• Poor parenting –> Quinton compared 50 women raised in an institution with 50 raised at home, found that when they were in 20s, they experienced problems as a parent, and their children spent time in care.

Question 6

What is a strength of research into institutionalisation?

Answer 6

• Real life application:
  –> Application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home.
  –> Langton: Studying the effects has improved psychologists understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects.
  = Improvements in the conditions experienced by looked after children e.g. in the care system
  –> E.g. Children’s care homes now avoid having more than one or two ‘key workers’ who play a central role in their emotional care.
  = Institutional care is an undesirable option for looked-after children, and considerable effort is being made to accommodate children to foster homes or being adopted instead. –> avoids disinhibited attachments in institutionalised children.

Question 7

What is another strength with a counterpoint into institutionalisation? (think about methodology)

Answer 7

+ Lack of confounding variables
—> There were other orphan studies before the Romanian Orphans became avaliable to study e.g. WWII
—> Many of the children experienced varying degrees of trauma, and it is difficult to disentangle the effects of neglect, bereavements and physical abuse from institutional care.
—> However, the children from the Romanian Orphan studies had been handed over by loving parents who couldn’t afford to keep them.
= Less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (higher internal validity)

COUNTERPOINT:
On the other hand, studying Romanian orphanages may have introduced different confounding variables:
—> The quality of care was remarkably poor, with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort.
—> The harmful effects seen in the studies of Romanian orphan’s may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care per se.

Question 8

What is a limitation of research into institutionalisation?