A: Animal Studies of Attachment

Question 1

Russel and Birch 3R’s for animal use guidelines

Answer 1

Reduction- minimal amount of animals in study as possible
Replacement- try and use alternative methods if possible
Refinement- use improved techniques to reduce stress

Question 2

What species are generally considered scientifically suitable to investigate on?

Answer 2

Rats/mice

Adapt well to living in cages

Question 3

Animal study ethics

Answer 3

-Procedures causing physical or mental harm avoided where possible
-Encouraged that investigations take place in their natural environment
-Animals must be properly cared for is the study requires them to be kept captive

Must do cost benefit analysis

Question 4

Procedure of Lorenz’s geese study

Answer 4

-divided gosling eggs into 2 groups
-one group left with natural environment + mother
-the other in an incubator with Lorenz being first moving thing seen
-goslings marker and placed together with the mother and Lorenz to see what they would do

Question 5

Findings of Lorenz’s geese study

Answer 5

-goslings quickly divided themselves up
-those left to hatch with the mother followed her and incubated goslings followed Lorenz with no recognition of their mother
-imprint on first large moving object seen
-critical period for imprinting in first few days

Question 6

Evaluation of Lorenz’s geese study

Answer 6

-lacks external validity as geese aren’t generalisable to humans- extrapolation
-ethical issues
-problematic for geese to not imprint on their mothers and learn normal behaviours

Question 8

Procedure of Harlow’s monkey study

Answer 8

-two mothers created/ one wrapped in soft cloth and one plain wire
-8 rhesus monkeys studied for 165 days
-4 of monkeys had bottle attached to cloth mother and other 4 on wire mother
-Harlow recorded time spent with mothers and observations recorded when they were frightened by a mechanical toy

Question 9

Findings of Harlow’s monkey study

Answer 9

-all 8 spent most of time on soft cloth mother regardless of wether it had the feeding bottle or not
-those with feeding bottle on wire mother only used it to feed then quickly returned to cloth mother
-all monkeys went to the cloth mother when frightened

Question 10

Evaluation of Harlow’s monkey study

Answer 10

-ethical issues with animal use
-can’t directly compare results to humans (extrapolation issues)
-normal of returned to mothers in 90 days, otherwise aggressive and unsociable