Animal Studies of Attachment

Question 1

lorenz (1935) - aim

Answer 1

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

Question 2

lorenz (1935) - design

Answer 2

independent groups.

Question 3

lorenz (1935) - IV

Answer 3

whether they were hatched naturally by the mother or hatched in an incubator.

Question 4

lorenz (1935) - DV

Answer 4

mechanisms of imprinting.

Question 5

lorenz (1935) - sample

Answer 5

20 goslings.

Question 6

lorenz (1935) - procedure

Answer 6

split a large clutch of goose eggs into two batches - one which 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. he then recorded the behaviour.

he marked the goslings, so he could determine whether they were from the naturally hatched or incubated ones.

he placed them all under an upturned box then removed them and recorded their behaviour.

Question 7

lorenz (1935) - findings

Answer 7

immediately after birth the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother while the incubator hatched ones follow lorenz. the same pattern of behaviour was the same when they were released from the upturned box - incubator hatched goslings going to lorenz and showing no bond to their natural mother. also these bonds proved irreversible.

lorenz also found that imprinting would occur within the first few hours after birth (approximately 4-25 hours) = critical period and was permanent (the goslings would always be imprinted onto humans). he later found that goslings that imprinted onto humans would attempt to mate with humans as adult birds (sexual imprinting).

Question 8

lorenz (1935) - conclusions

Answer 8

imprinting (type of attachment) has a critical period and is needed to form an attachment - close contact is kept with the first large moving object.

also if a goose did not attach during the critical period it would not attach to a mother figure.

Question 9

Describe sexual imprinting.

Answer 9

lorenz also investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences. he observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans.

in a case study lorenz (1952) described a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects the peacock saw after hatching were giant tortoises. as an adult this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises. lorenz concluded that this meant the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting.

Question 10

Outline the strength of Lorenz - research support

Answer 10

regolin and vallortigara (1995) supports lorenz idea of imprinting. chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved such as a triangle with a rectangle in front.

a range of shape combinations were then moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely.

this supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical window of development (as predicted by lorenz).

Question 11

Outline the weakness of Lorenz - generalisability to humans

Answer 11

ability to generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans - the mammalian attachment system is quite different and more complex than that in birds.

for example in mammals attachment is a two way process so it is not just the young who become attached to their mothers but also the mammalian mothers show an emotional attachment to their young.

this means that it is probably not appropriate to generalise this research to humans.

Question 12

Outline the weakness of Lorenz - research bias

Answer 12

lorenz wanted to prove his idea of imprinting so he may have interpreted the behaviours to provide support for his theory. this means the study might lack internal validity. however considerable replications have found the same results so arguably it is reliable and therefore likely to be valid.

Question 13

harlow (1958) - aim

Answer 13

to investigate whether food or comfort was more important in forming a bond.

Question 14

harlow (1958) - design

Answer 14

independent groups.

Question 15

harlow (1958) - IV

Answer 15

the ‘model mother’ (cloth covered or wired mesh).

Question 16

harlow (1958) - DV

Answer 16

whether food or comfort was more important in attachment behaviour.

Question 17

harlow (1958) - sample

Answer 17

16 baby monkeys.

Question 18

harlow (1958) - procedure

Answer 18

tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother.

in one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’ (one plain and one cloth covered).

in one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth covered mother.

Question 19

harlow (1958) - findings

Answer 19

the baby monkeys cuddled the cloth covered object in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth covered one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk.

this showed that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkey than food when it came to attachment behaviour.

Question 20

harlow (1958) - follow up procedure

Answer 20

harlow also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.

Question 21

harlow (1958) - follow up findings

Answer 21

found that the monkeys reared with only a wire mother were the most dysfunctional. however even those reared with a soft toy as a substitute did not develop normal social behaviour.

they were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and they bred less often than is typical for monkeys being unskilled at mating.

as mothers some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children even killing them in some cases.

Question 22

harlow (1958) - conclusions

Answer 22

concluded that there was a critical period for attachment formation - a mother figure had to be introduced to a young monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. after this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible.

also concluded that rhesus monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact comfort so suggests that attachment concerns more emotional security rather than food.

Question 23

Outline the strength of Harlow - real world value.

Answer 23

important real world applications - for example it has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes.

we also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild.

this means that the value of harlows research is not just theoretical but also practical.

Question 24

Outline the weakness of Harlow - generalisability to humans.

Answer 24

rhesus monkeys are much more similar to humans than lorenz birds and all mammals share some common attachment behaviours.

however, the human brain and human behaviour is still more complex than that of monkeys.

this means that it may not be appropriate to generalise harlows findings to humans.