Animal studies

Question 1

What are the 2 key animal studies?

Answer 1

Lorenz- goslings.

Harlow- rhesus monkeys.

Question 2

Outline Lorenz’s study.

Answer 2

• Divided gosling eggs into 2 groups, 1=mother, 2= incubator.
• Lorenz was the first thing the incubated goslings saw- imprinting innate attachment.
• Tested imprinting by mixing both groups up.
• Goslings ignored their natural mother and followed Lorenz.

Question 3

Outline Harlow’s study.

Answer 3

• created 2 wire mothers.
• 16 monkeys studied for 165 days.
• 4 monkeys= cloth and bottle.
• 4 monkeys= wire and bottle.
• 4 monkeys= cloth.
• 4 monkeys=wire.
• Time spent on mother was recorded.
• ALL monkeys clung to the cloth mother, when frightened with mechanical toy.

Question 4

What Harlow conclude?

Answer 4

infants attach to contact comfort as opposed to those who feed them.

Question 5

What did Lorenz conclude?

Answer 5

• Imprinting is restricted to a limited time frame.
• Process was irreversible.
• Imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences- choose to mate upon similar object that they were imprinted on.

Question 6

What are the benefits of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 6

+support for critical period- Hess (1958), 13-17 hours after birth imprinting occured, anything after 32 hours= difficult to imprint.
+Influenced Bolwby’s work- idea of critical time for babies to form attachments.

Question 7

What are the negatives to Lorenz’s study?

Answer 7

• Sulkin (1966) isolated a ducking after the critical period and found it was still able to imprint, concluded that the ‘critical’ period was just a sensitive period.
• Reversible imprinting- chickens imprinted with yellow rubber gloves found that when they spend time with their own species then normal sexual behaviour occurs.

Question 8

What are the benefits of Harlow’s study?

Answer 8

+Applications on research, Howe (1998) found that research has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse.
+Profound effect on understanding mother-infant attachment. Does not develop due to feeding but due to comfort of mother.

Question 9

What are the negatives to Harlow’s study?

Answer 9

• lacks internal validity due to confounding variables.
• Ethics, monkeys suffered harm.
• Hard to generalise human behaviour based on animal behaviour.