animal studies into attachment Flashcards
What is imprinting ?
An innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development, probably within the first few hours after birth/hatching → if not then it will probably not happen
Lorenz aims
Certain animals ( such as birds) are known to attach to their mother tightly: the infant will often follow the mother → Lorenz turned this into imprinting and tested this
lorenz procedure
- Randomly divided 12 goose eggs
½ were taken to be hatched in an incubator with - Lorenz ( as the first thing they saw)
and ½ in natural environment with their bio mother
Lorenz - findings
- The goslings Lorenz has hatched imprinted on him - following him ( no recognition of own mother)
- Goslings in natural environment imprinted on their mother - followed her
When released those in Lorenz care carried in following him - Found the godlings has a critical period of 32 hours ; if a gosling did not see a large moving object to imprint on these first few hours → it lost ability to imprint
Lorenz conclusion
Lorenz’s Work suggests imprinting is a strong biological feature of attachment in certain birds and imprinting is with the first large object visually seen, not other cues. → early attachment irreversible and long lasting
implications of later ( imprinting)
- Found if they did not imprint early on → would not happen at all
- Imprinting has to occur in critical period
- Imprint on anything moving living or not
- Sexual preference for things similar to what they imprinted on
Harlow aim
a test of the cupboard love theory ( babies love mothers as they feed them)
Harlow ( aims)
to test learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in babies with a wire surrogate producing milk and those with a cloth mother producing no milk.
Harlow procedure
- for 165 days / 8 orphaned monkeys
- Removed infant monkeys from bio mother after birth and placed in cages with two surrogate mothers
- IV= feeding bottle DV = time spent with mother
( one made of wire filled of milk / one cloth with no food but did provide comfort) - Time spent with each mother was recorded
- As well as which surrogate the infant ran to when frightened by a mechanical monkey → in order to measure attachment like behaviour
Harlow’s findings
- Found spent most of time with cloth mother → only visiting other briefly to eat
- Cloth mother when frightened → noticed lower stress levels
- Even stretched across to the wire monkey just to feed while clinging to cloth
Harlow’s findings
Research suggests that → biological need for physical contact and will attach to whatever provides comfort rather than food. → opposing cupboard love theory
Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and willingness to explore → emotional security
Rhesus monkeys have an innate drive to seek contact comfort suggesting attachment with parents is formed through an emotional need for security.
Harlow’s abnormalities monkeys
- Being timid
- Difficulty with mating → sexually abnormal
- Unpredictable with other monkeys
- Females were inadequate mothers → did not cradle own babies
What did the abnormalities in monkeys lead Harlow to deduce?
Lead harlow to propose that there is a ‘ critical period’ → attachment needs to occur within the first few months or negative consequences.
Strengths
- Blowby( HARLOW support) → argued infants crave comforts from mothers, attempting to form monotropic relationships. And if this fails humans will grow into adults with poor socialisation - like the monkeys
- Lorenz findings on critical periods are influential → Bowlby argued there is a similar period for humans 6- 30 mths. If attachment does not form in that time → permanent social problems
- Lorenz support
Guiton - found chicks imprint on yellow washing up gloves ( as ‘mothers’) would try to mate with gloves as adults → animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical period → suggests there is a mechanism for imprinting during critical period / forms basis for later behaviour - Practical applications → knowledge gained developed by Bowlby has been applied to childcare. E.g after birth immediate physical contact with mother is encouraged/ social services investigate infant neglect understanding its long term harm → deeper understanding of human attachment
- Howe → Knowledge gained from research helped social workers to understand risk factors of infant neglect and abuse → able to recognise when to intervene
- Practical applications → used in the care of captive wold monkeys are bred in zoos to ensure they have adequate attachment figures as part of their care
- Though some psychologists argue the long term benefits to human infants resulting is justifying
considering a cost- benefit analysis. - Humans share a common ancestry with species : monkeys → structural and functional processes are similar. Answer questions difficult on humans → potential for developing health care and education so useful in real world
- Able to help understand how the brain behaviour works
