animal studies Flashcards
(8 cards)
why do we use animal studies
-attachment like behaviour is common in a wide range of species so it can better help us understand human attachments
-No ethical violations
what was Lorenz procedure
-Randomly divide a clutch of geese
-half hatch with mother goose (control)
-half hatched in an incubator with the first moving object they see being Lorenz (experiment)
-Muddled them up and observed which geese followed who
what were Lorenz findings
Group which hatched with mother goose followed her
Group that hatched in incubator and saw Lorenz as the first moving object followed him around
what was Lorenz conclusions
Called this imprinting – bird species
attach to and follow the first moving
object they see.
Lorenz said there was a critical period
which imprinting needs to take place.
If imprinting does not occur during this
critical period, then the babies don’t
attach themselves to a mother figure.
what was Harlows procedure
Harlow reared 16 rhesus monkeys with two wire
models ‘mothers’.
One wire model was plain wire.
The other was covered in a soft
cloth.
The plain wire mother dispensed
milk whilst the soft cloth mother
did not.
Measured time spent with each
monkey.
what were Harlows findings
The baby monkeys preferred to
cuddle and spend time with the
soft cloth covered mother when
frightened.
On average the monkeys spent 18
hours a day with the soft cloth
mother.
The monkeys would only go to the
plain wire mother for food and then
would go straight back to the soft
cloth mother
what were Harlows conclusions
Concluded that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
what happened to maternally deprived monkeys as adults
Harlow followed these monkeys
into adulthood to see if this
maternal deprivation had
permanent effects.
The found that these monkeys
were more aggressive and less
sociable than other monkeys.
When the monkeys became mothers, some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases.
After no bonding in the critical period (90 days) the damage of early deprivation was irreversable
