A: Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
Procedure of Lorenz: Imprinting
Randomly divided 12 goose eggs, half hatched with mother goose in natural environment and other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz. Mixed all goslings together to see whom they would follow. Lorenz also observed birds and their later courtship behaviour.
Findings and conclusions of Lorenz: Imprinting
Incubator group followed Lorenz, control group followed mother. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place (e.g. few hours after hatching). If imprinting didn’t occur during that time, chicks did not attach themselves to the mother figure. Sexual imprinting also occurs whereby birds acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate.
Limitation’s of Lorenz’s research
GENERALISING FINDINGS FROM BIRDS TO HUMANS: the mammalian attachment system is quite different from that in birds. E.g. mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young. Means it is not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
FINDINGS& OBSERVATIONS QUESTIONED: Guiton found chickens imprinted on yellow washing-up gloves tried to mate with them as adults. But with experience they learned to mate with their own kind. Suggests that the effects of imprinting are not as long-lasting as Lorenz believed.
Strength of Lorenz’s research
SUPPORT FOR CONCEPT OF IMPRINTING: Guiton found chicks imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults. Suggests that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical window of development. Suggests there is an innate mechanism causing a young animal to imprint on a moving object during the critical period of development.
Procedure of Harlow: Importance of contact comfort
Reared 16 rhesus monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’. 1st condition, milk dispensed by the plain wire ‘mother’. 2nd condition, dispensed by the cloth-covered ‘mother’. Monkeys preferences measures. As further measure of attachment-like behaviour reactions of monkeys to more frightening situations were observed (e.g. Harlow placed the monkeys in novel situations with novel objects. He also added a noisemaking teddy bear to the environment). Harlow & colleagues also continued to study monkeys who had been deprived of their ‘real’ mother into adulthood.
Findings & conclusions of Harlow: Importance of contact comfort
Baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one and regardless of which dispensed milk. Suggests contact comfort was of more importance than food when it came to attachment behaviour. Monkeys sought comfort from cloth wire mother when frightened. As adults, monkeys that had been deprived of their real mothers suffered severe consequences: more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled in mating than other monkeys. Also neglected and sometimes killed their own offspring.
Strength of Harlow’s research
IMPORTANT PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: helped social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and so intervene to prevent it (Howe). We also now understand importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild. The usefulness of Harlow’s research increases its value.
Limitation of Harlow’s research
GENERALISING FROM MONKEYS TO HUMANS: although monkeys more similar to humans than Lorenz’s geese, they are not humans. E.g. human babies develop speech-like communication (e.g. babbling). May influence the formation of attachments. Psychologists disagree on the extent to which studies of non-human primates can be generalised to humans.
Ethical issues of Harlow’s research
Rhesus monkeys similar enough to humans for us to generalise findings, which also means their suffering was presumably human-like. Harlow himself was aware of the suffering caused, he referred to the wire mothers as ‘iron maidens’, named after a medieval torture device. The counter-argument is that Harlow’s research was sufficiently important to justify the procedures.
