Animal studies Flashcards
What did Lorenz do?
Aim: mechanisms of imprinting
Procedure: divided a clutch - incubator and mother - they imprinted on Lorenz - marked the two gps and put them back together - they split to go to their imprinting figure.
Results: Lorenz’s group showed no recognition for their real mother - he did the same with ducks and a welly - CRITICAL PERIOD 13-16 hours after hatching - 32hrs was the end of the imprinting stage.
List the evaluation points for Lorenz’s study.
+SUPPORTING RESEARCH: Guiton did the same on leghom chicks and a yellow rubber glove.
+IMPORTANT INFO GAINED: This theory influenced Bowlby’s idea that humans have a critical period too.
-GENERALIZING BIRDS WITH HUMANS: mammalian attachments are very different, for example mammalian mothers are more emotionally attached to their young.
-SOME OF HIS CONCLUSIONS HAVE BEEN QUESTIONED: Lorenz said that not having a good imprinting would lead to troubles mating however, Guiton said that the chinkens would try to mate with the glove.
What did Harlow do?
Aim: effects of privation
Procedure: 16 monkeys - separated from their mothers at birth - put in cages with two surrogate mothers - one wire and one cloth - 8 got milk from the wire and 8 got milk from the cloth.
Results: both gps spent more time with the cloth mother - infants in the second gp only went to the wire mother when hungry - they would take refuge with the cloth mother and would explore the cage more when the cloth mother was present.
What differences did Harlow see with the normal monkeys and the ones with surrogate mothers?
The ones that had surrogate mothers were:
- timid
- lacked social skills with other monkeys
- aggressive
- had difficulties mating
- females were “inadequate mothers”
What did Harlow conclude?
“contact comfort” was more important that food in the formation of a attachment.
Early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage but can be fixed within the critical period, anytime past the critical period could not be fixed.
Reasons why Harlow’s research could be applies to humans.
+monkeys are closely related to humans
+mammalian attachment systems are also similar
+tactile comfort - attachments aren’t always with the thing that feeds and care for the infant but the thing that gives it support
What is a big confounding variable to Harlow’s study?
The head of the cloth monkey was different to the wire monkey, it was the head that closely resembled a real monkey.
This could have meant that the monkeys preferred the cloth mother because they identified with it and didn’t register the wire mother to be a optional mother figure.
Lacks internal validity.
What were some other limitations to Harlow’s study?
The research was unethical.
The monkeys were put in bad conditions
Their environment also didn’t match their natural one
This means that the study was very reductionist and deterministic because it didn’t consider other implicating factors.
