Attachment: Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
What is imprinting?
The innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother. Occurs in a specific period of time soon after birth (critical period)
What are the 2 key animal studies
Lorenz - Goslings
Harlow - Rhesus monkeys
What was the aim of Lorenz’s research?
To investigate the role of imprinting in the formation of attachments.
What was the procedure of Lorenz’s research?
Divided a clutch of gosling eggs into 2 groups: 1 left with the natural mother and the other in an incubator.
When the incubator eggs first hatched the first living thing the saw was Lorenz for the other group the first thing they saw as the mother. Lorenz marked the incubator group and mixed the two groups together with the mother present.
What were the findings of Lorenz’s research
One group followed Lorenz, and the other followed their natural mother. Lorenz’s gosling showed no recognition to their natural mother + stated that the process of imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of a young’s animals’ life – the critical period.
If a young animal isn’t exposed to a moving object during the critical period, it won’t imprint. Lorenz also found that imprinting to humans doesn’t happen is some animals (curlews).
What was the conclusion of Lorenz’s research?
Lorenz (1952) noted that imprinting is irreversible + long lasting and that early imprinting influences later mate preferences (sexual imprinting) and that animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with the same kind of object which they imprinted.
What are 2 AO3 points for Lorenz’s research?
+Research support
-Criticism of imprinting
(+AO3) What was the research support for Lorenz’s research?
Guiton (1966) found that Leghorn chicks imprinted on yellow rubber gloves when they were exposed to them during feeding in the first few weeks.
This supports the idea that animals aren’t born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific object but rather any moving object during the critical period.
Male chicks also tried to mate with the yellow gloves, also proving that early attachment has an effect on reproductive behaviour.
(-AO3) What are the criticisms of imprinting?
It had been accepted that the effects if imprinting were irreversible. Now it’s understood that imprinting is ore plastic + forgiving.
Guiton found that he could reverse imprinting + the mate preferences of the male chicks. After spending time with their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour.
What was the aim of Harlow’s research?
To investigate whether the attachment is based on comfort rather than feeding.
What was the procedure of Harlow’s research?
2 wire monkeys with different heads – one wrapped in cloth.
8 Rhesus monkeys were studied for 165 days – 4 monkeys fed from the cloth covered mother + the other 4 fed from the milk bottle on the plain wire mother.
Measurements were made of how much time the infants spent with each mother + infants’ response to being frightened.
What were the findings of Harlow’s research?
All spent more time with cloth covered mother. Monkeys who fed from wire mother spent a shorter amount of time feeding and then returned to the cloth mother.
When playing with new objects infants often kept one foot on the cloth mother + when frightened infants ran/ clung to the cloth mother. Suggesting that infants don’t develop an attachment with those who feed them but those that offer contact comfort.
What was the conclusion of Harlow’s research?
Monkey’s (even those with contact comfort) developed abnormally. They were socially abnormal (froze or fled when approached by other monkeys) + sexually abnormal (didn’t show normal mating behaviour or cradle their own children). Harlow found that there was a critical period for these effects —> if the motherless monkeys spent time with their monkey “peers” they seemed to recover but only if this happened before they were 3 months old. However, spending 6 months with only a wire mother was something they didn’t appear to recover from.
What are the 3 AO3 points for Harlow’s research?
-Difficulty generalising to humans
-Confounding variables
+Ethically justified
(-AO3) Why is Harlow’s research difficult to generalise to humans?
Humans and animals differ by conscious decisions + free will + needs more research on humans but may be unethical
