Animal Studies

Question 1

What are animal studies?

Answer 1

Animal studies are carried out on non-human species, either for ethical or practical reasons.

Question 2

Give a strength of using animals, instead of humans, in investigations into attachment

Answer 2

Practical because animals breed faster and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation.

Question 3

What did early views of attachment suggest about social interaction between caregivers and infants?

Answer 3

They suggested that social interaction between caregivers and infants was unimportant and this was true of both human and non-human species.

Question 4

What did early views of attachment suggest that babies attach for?

Answer 4

They suggested that babies attach to their mother primarily to receive food (cupboard love theory). Attachments are based on physiological ‘love’ rather than comfort and psychological ‘love’.

Question 5

What did Lorenz and Harlow suggest about attachment?

Answer 5

They investigated the need for early social interaction in animals; and their theories have roots in evolutionary psychology, suggesting that animals come into the world biologically pre-programmed to form attachments with others because this will help them survive.

Question 6

What animal did Harlow study?

Answer 6

16 Rhesus Monkeys

Question 7

What was the aim of Harlow’s investigation?

Answer 7

To investigate the behaviour of infant monkeys separated from their mother at birth to assess the effects of separation on later behaviour.

Question 8

Describe the procedure of Harlow’s study into the effects of separation.

Answer 8

Two types of the surrogate mother were constructed — a harsh ‘wire mother’ and a soft ‘towelling mother’. Sixteen baby RHESUS monkeys were used, four in each of four conditions:
1. A cage containing a wire mother producing milk and a towelling mother producing no milk
2. A cage containing a wire mother producing no milk and a towelling mother producing no milk
3. A cage containing a wire mother producing milk
4. A cage containing a towelling mother producing milk
The amount of time spent with each mother, as well as feeding time, was recorded.
The monkeys were frightened with a loud noise to test for mother preference during stress.
A larger cage was also used to test the monkeys’ degree of exploration.

Question 9

Describe the findings of Harlow’s study into the effects of separation.

Answer 9

The findings showed that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one regardless of which dispensed milk. This suggests that contact comfort was of more importance than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
The monkeys also sought comfort from the cloth wire mother when frightened.

Harlow and his colleagues followed the monkeys who had been deprived of their real mother into adulthood. This maternal deprivation produced severe consequences: the monkeys were more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled at mating than other monkeys. They also neglected and sometimes killed their own offspring.

Question 10

What two important conclusions can be made from Harlow’s study?

Answer 10

• The monkeys’ early experiences seemed to have led to emotional problems, resulting in delinquent and anti-social behaviour. This supports Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory.
• Secondly the study showed that infants do not attach primarily for food but for contact comfort. This contradicts the learning theory/’cupboard love’ theory of attachment

Question 11

What did Harlow find about maternally deprived monkeys as adults?

Answer 11

Harlow found that as adults, monkeys who were reared with wire mothers only (they were maternally deprived) showed severe behavioural consequences. They were very dysfunctional in that they bred less often, they were unskilled at mating, female monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children. Even those reared with a soft toy as a substitute did not develop normal social behaviour.

Question 12

What did Harlow conclude about the critical period for normal development?

Answer 12

Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for attachments to occur. A mother figure had to be introduced to the young rhesus monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time, the attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation was irreversible.

Question 13

What are the 3 PEEL evaluation paragraphs for Harlow’s research

Answer 13

1. cofounding variable
2. generalising animal studies to human behaviour
3. ethics of harlow’s study

Question 14

Ẁhat is the PEEL paragraph for Harlow’s research evaluation point; cofounding variable?

Answer 14

P - one criticism that has been made of Harlow’s study is that the two stimulus objects varied in more ways than being cloth-covered or not
E - the two heads were also different, which acted as a confounding variable because it varied systematically with the independent variable (‘mother’ being cloth-covered or not).
E - it is possible that the reason the infant monkeys preferred one ‘mother’ to the other was because the cloth-covered mother had a more attractive head
L - therefore, the conclusions of this study lack internal validity

Question 15

Ẁhat is the PEEL paragraph for Harlow’s research evaluation point; generalising animal studies to human behaviour?

Answer 15

P - the ultimate aim of animal studies is to b able to generalise the conclusions to human behaviour
E - however, humans differ in important ways - perhaps most importantly because much more of their behaviour is governed by conscious decisions
E - nevertheless, a number of studies have found that the observation made of animal attachment behaviour is mirrored in studies of humans. For example, Harlow’s research is supported by Schaffer and Emerson’s findings that infants were not most attached to the person who fed them
L - this demonstrated that, while animal studies can act as a useful pointer in understanding human behaviour, we should always seek confirmation by looking at research with humans

Question 16

Ẁhat is the PEEL paragraph for Harlow’s research evaluation point; ethics of Harlow’s study?

Answer 16

P - a study such as Harlow’s could not be done with humans, but there is also the question of whether it should be done with monkeys
E - the study created lasting emotional harm as the monkeys later found it difficult to form relationships with their peers
E - on the other hand, the experiment can be justified in terms of the significant effect it has had on our understanding of the processes of attachment, and the research derived from this study has been used to offer better care for human (and primate) infants
L - therefore, it could be argued that the benefits outweigh the costs o the animals involved in the study. Such criticisms do not challenge the findings of the research but are important in monitoring what counts as good science

Question 17

What was the aim of Lorenz’s investigation?

Answer 17

To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet.

Question 18

What animal did Lorenz study?

Answer 18

greylag geese

Question 19

Describe the procedure of Lorenz’s study

Answer 19

1. Lorenz (1935) split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches, one of which was hatched naturally by the mother and the other hatched in an incubator, with Lorenz making sure he was the first moving object the newly hatched goslings encountered.
2. Following behaviour was then recorded
3. Lorenz then marked all of the goslings, so he could determine whether they were from the naturally hatched batch of eggs or the incubated ones, and placed them under an upturned box.
4. The box was then removed and the following behaviour again recorded.

Question 20

What were the findings of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 20

Immediately after birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about, while the incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz around.

When released from the upturned box the naturally hatched goslings went straight to their mother, while the incubated goslings went to Lorenz, showing no bond with their natural mother. These bonds proved to be irreversible; the naturally hatched goslings would only follow their mother and the incubated ones would only follow Lorenz.

Lorenz also noted how imprinting would only occur within a brief, set time period of between 4 and 25 hours after hatching.

Lorenz subsequently reported on how goslings imprinted onto humans would, as matured adult birds, attempt to mate with humans.

Question 21

What conclusion did Lorenz come to?

Answer 21

Imprinting is a form of attachment, exhibited mainly by nidifugous birds (ones that leave the nest early), whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered.

Question 22

What are the 2 PEEL evaluation paragraphs for Lorenz’s research

Answer 22

1. research support for imprinting

2. criticisms of imprinting

Question 23

Ẁhat is the PEEL paragraph for Lorenz’s research evaluation point; research support for imprinting

Answer 23

P - a number of other studies have demonstrated imprinting in animals
E - for example, Guiton (1966) demonstrated that leghorn chicks, exposed to yellow rubber gloves while being fed during their first few weeks, became imprinted on the gloves
E this supports the view that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object but probably on any moving thing that is present during the critical window of development, Guiton also found that the male chickens later tried o mate with the gloves, showing hat early imprinting is linked to later reproductive behaviour
L - therefore, Guiton’s findings provide clear support for Lorenz’s original research and conclusions

Question 24

Ẁhat is the PEEL paragraph for Lorenz’s research evaluation point; criticisms of imprinting

Answer 24

P - there is some dispute over the characteristics of imprinting
E - for many years the accepted view of imprinting was that it was an irreversible process, whereby the object encountered was somehow stamped permanently on the nervous system
E - now, it is understood that imprinting is a more ‘plastic and forgiving mechanism (Hoffman, 1996). For example, Guiton (1966) found that he could reverse the imprinting in chickens that had initially tried to mate with the rubber gloves
E - he found that, later, after spending time with their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens
L - this suggests that imprinting may not, after all, b so very different from any other kind of learning. Learning can also take place rapidly, with little conscious effort, and is also fairly reversible