ANIMAL STUDIES Flashcards
Name two researchers that investigated attachment / mother-infant relationships
lorenz, Harlow
Lorenz: AIM
Investigated the effect of imprinting
Lorenz: PROCEDURE
- Conducted an experiment in which goose eggs were randomly divided so that half of them hatched with the mother goose (in their natural environment) and half hatched in an incubator so the goslings first saw Lorenz when they hatched
Lorenz: FINDINGS & CONCLUSION
The control group (that hatched with mother) followed mother everywhere whereas the experimental group (that hatched in incubator) followed Lorenz. This behaviour persisted even when they were mixed together. This is called imprinting- newly hatched chicks attach to the first moving object they see. Identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place (a few hours after birth). If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.
What did Lorenz conclude about the critical period for attachment for geese?
What would the effects be if imprinting did not occur?
- Imprinting needs to take place a few hours after birth.
- If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
Lorenz: EV: Generalisability to humans.
- Lorenz was interested in imprinting in birds. The human attachment system is quite different from that in birds.
- For example, human mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds.
- This means that there is a problem in generalising Lorenz’s findings on birds to humans
- This is a disadvantage as even though the findings have had an influence on our understanding of human development, there is a vast difference between mammals and birds and therefore we are unable to apply the findings to humans.
Lorenz: EV: Questionable reliability
- Guiton et al. found that chickens who had imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults (as Lorenz would have predicted), but that with experience they eventually learned to prefer to mate with other chickens.
- This suggests that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent as Lorenz believed.
Who used monkeys to investigate attachment?
Harlow
Who used goslings to investigate mother-infant attachment?
lorenz
What idea did Harlow test?
The idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother
Harlow: PROCEDURE
- Harlow reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’.
- In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in a second condition the mild was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother
Harlow: FINDINGS
- Baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one.
- Sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk.
Harlow: CONCLUSION
- ‘Contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Harlow followed the monkeys into adulthood for what reason?
To see if maternal deprivation had a permanent effect
What did Harlow observe in the adulthood of monkeys who experienced maternal deprivation
The monkeys reared with wire mothers only grew up the most socially dysfunctional (they were more aggressive and less sociable). However, even those reared with a soft toy as substitute did not develop normal social behaviour