Animal Studies Flashcards
(9 cards)
Who are the 2 psychologists that studied attachments in animals
Lorenz - geese
Harlow - monkeys
Lorenz geese research and why he did it
Lorenz was an ethnologist that studied imprinting. This is because his neighbours gave him a newly hatched duck and it followed Lorenz around, suggesting it imprinted on him.
Imprinting is when (specifically birds) species instinctively follow the first moving object that it sees.
Lorenz randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs, half stayed with their mother, in their natural environment (control group) and half went with Lorenz, and hatched in an incubator and the first object they saw was Lorenz. (experimental group)
Then he combined both groups together to see who they would follow.
Lorenz geese findings
The control group followed their mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz.
He also identified that the geese had a critical period in imprinting (which was a few hours after hatching)
If imprinting didn’t occur during the critical period then the chicks did not attach themselves to the mother figure.
Sexual imprinting also occurs when the birds acquire a desirable template of characteristics required in a male.
Strength evaluation - Lorenz geese
P- supporting research for the theory of imprinting
E- a psychologist used yellow rubber gloves to feed chicks during the critical period of their life. The chicks were then found trying to mate with the yellow rubber gloves
E- suggests that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object during the critical period, which was suggested by Lorenz
Limitation evaluation - Lorenz
P- we can’t generalise findings
E- human attachment is reciprocal, because the mother is attached to the baby and the baby is attached the mother, however this is different for Lorenz and his geese because the geese is attached to him but he isn’t attached to the geese
E- not appropriate to generalise to humans
Harlows monkey research and why he he did it
Harlow separated newborn rhesus monkeys from their mothers and raised them in individual cages, which contained a blanket, which the monkeys became extremely attached to.
When this blanket was taken the monkeys became extremely distressed, which causes Harlow to carry out this study
16 rhesus monkeys were put in a cage with 2 mothers, 1 was a wire mother that provided food and the other mother was a cloth covered.
Harlow wanted to test attachment through scaring the monkeys, so he put in a loud machine to scare the monkeys and results showed that the monkeys ran to the cloth mother suggesting that it provides comfort, and shows attachment.
Harlows monkeys results
The monkeys spent less then an hour on the wire mother and 17-18 hours on the cloth mother, suggesting that a sense of comfort is more important then food.
When the monkeys grew up into adults (who were deprived of their mothers in childhood), showed that they were more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled in mating in comparison to other monkeys.
Strength evaluation - Harlow
P- this can be generalised to humans
E- this is because rhesus monkeys are very similar to humans and are showed to display similar attachments, therefore it can improve our understanding of attachment
E- provides research without having to research on humans
HOWEVER, just because they are similar doesn’t mean that attachments will be exactly the same, which mean its not completely accurate demostrigtion of human attachments
Limitation evaluation - Harlow
P- ethical issues
E- the monkeys suffered from emotional harm due to being in isolation, and this impacted their reproduction and social skills with other monkeys. One mother smashed their infants face on the floor and rubbed it back and forth and when put with other monkeys they didn’t socialise, they sat in the corner.
E- findings of the research came with negative side effects for the monkeys
