Animal studies Flashcards
Lorenz- Imprinting in Geese
•Geese automatically ‘attach’ to the first moving thing they see after hatching.
•He divided a clutch of goose eggs into two groups, one group incubated and the other with their mother.
• The incubator geese followed him the same way the goslings from the other eggs would follow their mother.
•He determined imprinting was most likely 13 to 16 hours after hatching.
• Imprinting seems to occur during a critical period.
•After the critical period it was too late for them to imprint.
•Human attachment takes longer.
Harlow monkey study. Contact comfort
•Aimed to find out whether baby monkeys would prefer a source of food or a source of comfort and protection as an attachment figure.
•One mother made of wire mesh and contained a feeding bottle, the other was made of cloth but didn’t contain feeding bottle.
•Monkeys felt more time clinging to the cloth surrogate and only used the wire surrogate to feed. Cloth surrogate gave them comfort in new situations.
Monkeys grew up with signs of social and emotional disturbance.
•Infant monkeys formed more of an attachment with a figure that provided comfort and protection. Growing up in isolation affected their development.
Harlow- Contact comfort evaluation
•Lab experiment- strict control of variables. So unlikely to be affected by extraneous variables.
•Could be argued that the findings can’t be generalised to humans.
•Ethical problem- placing monkeys under stress, and the study leading to signs of psychological damage.
•Lack ecological validity- monkeys are in isolation so not in their natural environment.
