Animal Studies of Attachment

Question 1

What did Lorenz investigate?
What did he find?

Answer 1

The effect of imprinting on baby goslings by diving up 12 baby geese eggs into 2 groups, one of which saw their mother first and the other saw Lorenz. He put them back together and watched to see which chicks followed who
Found the group who saw their mother first followed her and the group who saw Lorenz first followed him - this group tried to mate with him and didn’t know how to interact with other geese suggesting that if imprinting did not occur within a few hours, the chicks would not attach and there would be long-lasting effect

Question 2

What is a strength of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 2

There is supportive evidence from Guiton who fed leghorns with a yellow rubber glove and found that they attached to that suggesting animals imprint on any moving object in the critical period

Question 3

What is a limitation of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 3

It is reductionist as it suggests humans act in the same way as animals whereas this does not work because humans can’t imprint as they are not immediately mobile when they’re born like geese, meaning this tells us little about the human attachment process

Question 4

What did Harlow investigate?
What did he find?

Answer 4

Whether attachments form based on food and being fed by taking 8 newborn monkeys away from their natural mothers and keeping them in isolation with two wire surrogate mothers: one with a milk bottle and one covered in a cloth
Found monkeys sent most time with the cloth-covered mother and stayed with this mother when scared and only went to other one to feed. There were long lasting effects as the monkeys couldn’t socialise or mate with other monkeys suggesting infants attach to those proving contact comfort rather than food

Question 5

What is a strength of Harlow’s study?

Answer 5

It has practical applications as there were policy changes within institutions

Question 6

What are 3 limitations of Harlow’s study?

Answer 6

1. It is inappropriate to extrapolate from monkeys to humans as humans can make conscious decisions
2. It was unethical as the monkeys were permanently damaged meaning it should not be replicated
3. There was a counting variable that the two mothers had different faces and the cloth-covered mother had a monkey-like head so the monkeys may have found this more attractive