3. animal studies Flashcards
animal studies have looked at
the formation of early bonds between non-human parents and their offspring . shows an attachment like behaviour is common to a range of species
lorenz 1935- imprinting
to investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the young form attachments to the first large moving object they meet
divided gosling eggs into 2 one was let with mother and the other in an incubator. the incubator group once hatched first saw lorenz and started to follow him around. he united the 2 groups but they divided themselves to follow the mother and lorenz
lorenz results
control group followed the mother
lorenz goslings didit recognise their mother
got young ducks to imprint on inanimate objects
the strongest tendency to imprint was between 13 and 16 hours after they hatch. after 32 hours imprinting ability had passed
similar to attachment that it binds a young animal to a caregiver in a special relationship
guiton 1966
demonstrated that leghorn chicks exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them durring their first few weeks became imprinted on the gloves
lorenz’s study suggested
there is a critical time period for attachment to occur which could be generalised to humans
generalising from birds to humans
mammalism attachment is different to birds. as they sho more emotional attachment to their young
lorenz conclusions have been questioned
he suggested imprinting had permanent consequences for later mating behaviour which is disproven. questions the validity of his findings
harlow 1958
16 monkeys seperated from mothers after birth and placed in cages with 2 surrogate mothers. one wire one cloth
eight recieved milk from wire mother and 8 from cloth mother
harlow 1958 results
both groups spent time with cloth mother
wire mother infants would only got to her if she had milk then return to cloth mother after
if a frightening object was placed in the cage monkeys took refuge with cloth mother
monkeys would explore more when cloth mother was present
what did harlow observe in the differences in behaviour between the monkeys
monkeys with surrogate mothers were more timid, didn’t know how to behave with other monkeys and could be more aggressive
had difficulty mating
females were inadequate mothers sometimes killing their offspring
monkeys left less than 90 days with surrogate mothers effects could be reversed
harlow conclusions
concluded that ‘contact comfort’ from the cloth mother was more important than food and more preferable but not enough for healthy development.
early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage but could be reversed if another attachment was made before the end of the critical period
