Attachment

Question 1

What are the two animal studies in attachment

Answer 1

Lorenz geese and Harlow’s Monkeys

Question 2

Procedure for Harlow’s monkeys

Answer 2

16 baby rhesus monkey separated from birth and reared by surrogate mothers
Wire mother and cloth mother
2 conditions - wire mother dispensed milk, cloth mother dispensed milk

Question 3

Findings for Harlow’s monkey

Answer 3

Baby rhesus preferred cloth mother despite who dispensed milk
Babies sought comfort from cloth mother when frightened in both conditions

Question 4

Harlow’s monkey’s attachment was affect. How?

Answer 4

Monkey’s that were deprived of mother or when reared by wire mother suffered consequences when they were adults
Grew aggressive, neglected, less sociable, less bred, attacked and killed own young

Question 5

What conclusion can you make from Harlow’s monkey’s study

Answer 5

Baby rhesus have an innate drive to seek comfort from parent
Attachment is formed through emotional need for security - goes against learning theory of attachment

Question 6

Lorenz geese procedure

Answer 6

Randomly divide clutch of goose eggs
Group one reared by goose and group two incubated
Lorenz was the first moving thing group two saw when hatched

Question 7

Lorenz geese findings

Answer 7

Incubator geese followed Lorenz wherever he went even when mixed up with control group
Geese imprinted on Lorenz
Critical period as less as only for few hours

Question 8

Sexual imprinting

Answer 8

Adult mate preference and courtship behaviours.

Eg : peacock raised in giant tortoise den showed courtship behaviour only to giant tortoise

Question 9

strength to Lorenz’s study

Answer 9

• Research support by Regolin and Vallortigara for imprinting
• Chicks exposed to simple shape that is moving. Eg : triangle
• When exposed to more than one simple shape the chicks imprinted onto the closest moving object
• This supports that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint onto the first moving object as it is critical for development

Question 10

limitation to Lorenz’s study

Answer 10

• Generalisability to humans
• Mammals and birds have different attachment style
• Parents show emotional reactions to their child and child can form attachments beyond the few hours after they are born
• suggests that animal study on geese cannot be applied to humans

Question 11

strength to Harlow’s experiment

Answer 11

• Real world applications - has practical values as it provides insight into attachment formation
• Howe reports findings from Harlow’s study is helpful for social workers and clinical psychologists as it helps them to understand lack of binding experience as a risk factor for child development - can be used to identify and prevent
• Helpful for animals in breeding programmes and zoos as they can be provided with an attachment figure for their care
• suggests Harlow has practical sense

Question 12

limitation to Harlow’s study

Answer 12

• Unethical
• If primates are considered to be human like for the sake of generalisability then emotional issues shown by primates are similar to human babies
• there is also an argument that is the insight obtained from Harlow’s experiment outweight the ethical issues in his procedures
• the pursuit of knowledge for human benefits are detrimental to non human species

Question 13

Who looked into maternal deprivation

Answer 13

Bowlby

Question 14

What did maternal deprivation look into

Answer 14

How the effects of early experience could interfere wutg the usual process of attachment

Question 15

What does deprivation mean

Answer 15

Loss of emotional care with no adequate substitute which leads to psychological damange

Question 16

Critical period for maternal deprivation

Answer 16

30 months

Question 17

Effects of deprivation

Answer 17

Intellectual development : Low IQ on children who has been in institutions
Emotional development : Affectionless psychopathy, inability to feel guilt or strong emotions for others

Question 18

Research into maternal deprivation

Answer 18

44 thieves study by Bowlby

Question 19

44 thieves procedure

Answer 19

Children who had been referred for stealing compared to control group
Both groups assessed for emotionless psychopathy and parents interviewed for seperation

Question 20

Findings of 44 thieves study

Answer 20

Control group : 0% Affectionless psychopaths, 4% experienced seperation

Thieves group : 32% affectionless psychopaths and 86% experienced early separation. 68% not affectionless psychopaths, 17% early separation