Animal Studies Flashcards
Outline Lorenz’s research on animal attachments
LG - Lorenz, Geese
-Randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs.
-Half of the goose eggs hatched in their natural environment with their mother, the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz.
-Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere after hatching whereas the control group followed their mother everywhere.
-When the two groups mixed, the experimental group continued to follow Lorenz.
-Imprinting.
-Found a critical period of a few hours.
What is meant by imprinting ?
Bird species that are mobile from birth become attached to and follow the first moving thing they see.
Outline Harlow’s research on animal attachments.
HM - Harlow, Monkey
-Reared 16 baby monkeys with2 wire model ‘mothers’ - one was wrapped in soft cloth.
-Monkeys responses were recorded for example when they were frightened, monkeys clung to cloth-covered mother when frightened.
-All monkeys spent most their time with the cloth-covered wire model mother.
-Monkeys who fed from the plain wire model mother spent a short time getting milk and then returned to the cloth-covered mother.
-Found that monkeys formed an attachment with someone offering them comfort through contact.
-Found a critical period of 90 days.
What did Harlow find on maternal deprivation ?
Found that monkeys reared with the plain wire model mother were the most dysfunctional.
Those reared with the cloth-covered mother did not develop normal social behaviour.
The deprived monkeys were less sociable than other monkeys - when they became mothers, some monkeys completely neglected their infants and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases.
Give 2 strengths of animal studies into attachment.
- Findings have had a profound effect on human attachment.
-Previously believed that infants were attached to their caregiver as they fed them however, Harlow shows the importance of contact comfort in establishing attachment.
-Harlow’s study also illustrates the importance of high quality early relationships to enable successful future relationships and social development - can be seen through the maternally deprived monkeys who went on to have poor relationships with their children, killing them in some cases.
-Later suggested by Bowlby - maternal deprivation and internal working model, shown in Harlow’s study.
- Research support
Schaffer and Emerson found sensitive responsiveness more important than food.
Give one limitation of animal studies into attachment.
Generalisability.
-It is questionable whether we can generalise findings to explain human attachments.
-Lorenz’s research consisted of studying geese who have less complex emotions than mammals - therefore contributes little to our understanding of human attachment.
-However, Harlow used monkeys who are a lot more similar to humans and so findings from his study can be generalised to humans and be useful.
