Animal Studies Of Attachment Flashcards
(11 cards)
What are animal studies?
These studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans either for ethical or practical reasons
Explain Lorenz’s research?
- Lorenz first observed imprinting when he was a child and neighbour gave him a hatch duckling that followed him around.
- He set up an experiment where half the eggs were with the mother and half was set up in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz - He found that the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the hatched group followed the mother.
- This is imprinting they attach to the first moving object they see. This can be as brief as a few hours of hatching
What is sexual imprinting?
He observed that when the first thing they saw was humans that later display courtship towards humans.
- Lorenz’s done a study on Peacock where he made them see tortoises and later on they only showed courtship behaviour towards tortoises. This was social imprinting.
Explain Harlow’s research?
Harlow observed that newborns kept to learning a cage often died but when they were given something soft like a cloth to cuddle they usually survived.
- He conducted an experiment.He reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers and in one condition milk is dispensed by the plane wire mother whereas the cloth covered mother also dispensed milk.
- they found out the baby monkeys cuddled the cloth covered mother in preference to the plain wire and they sought comfort to the cloth covered one.
Explain what happened after Harlow’s research?
- They lead to track the monkeys to see if maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
- Research found that the plane wire mother were most dysfunctional however, and were less sociable to other monkeys and they bred less than other typical monkeys. Some of them even neglected their young and attacked their children, even killed them in some cases.
Evaluate one strength of Lorenz’s research?
- one is the existing support of imprinting. Regolin and Vallortigara supported Lorenzo’s idea of imprinting. - The chicks were exposed to shape combinations such as triangles and rectangles and when the shapes are moved, the chicks followed them closely to supports Lorenz’s research.
Evaluate one limitation of Lorenz’s study?
- one limitation is the ability to generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans.
- In humans attachment is a two way process as not only the young becomes attached to mum. The mum also becomes attached a child where this is different in birds.
Evaluate one real world stength in Harlow’s research?
- Harlow’s research is important in real world applications. It helped social workers and clinical psychologists to understand a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development leading to poor outcomes.
- We also understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys and zoo and breeding programs in the wild. This means it’s not theoretical but also practical.
Evaluate another limitation of Harlow’s research?
- the ability to generalise findings and conclusions from monkeys to humans.
- Monkeys are more similar to humans . Lorenzo’s bird and the human brain is still more complex than monkeys. This means it might not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans.
Evaluate another real world example?
Farmers have been aware of imprinting and for motherless lambs they take the fleece for a dead lamb and wrap it around the orphan lamb thus ensuring survival
What did Lorenz say the critical period for geese was?
13-16 hours
