animal studies Flashcards
LORENZ. what is imprinting?
imprinting is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother, which takes place during the critical period in development (a few hours after birth/hatching)
If it does not happen at this time, it probably wont happen
Lorenz’s study
- goslings hatched naturally with mother
- goslings hatched in incubator and Lorenz was the first moving object they experiences
Lorenz marked the hatched goslings to show which were naturally hatched and which were incubator hatched. He placed hatched goslings under a box and observed their behaviour when he lifted the box
Results of Lorenz study
The naturally hatched goslings followed the mother goose whereas the incubator goslings followed Lorenz. This is because Lorenz was the first moving object they saw and had attached to him during the critical period. This shows that animals have an innate readiness in them to attach to a mother figure, even if they are not the biological mother.
One strength of Lorenz’s research
One strength is that the study has high ecological validity. Lorenz did the study of the naturally hatching goslings in the animals natural habitat so their behaviour was truthful.
one weakness of Lorenz’s study
Lacks generalisability to humans. Cannot extrapolate the findings of this research to humans as mammals and birds have different attachment systems.
one strength of Lorenz’s study
Has reliability. Later research replicated Lorenz’s findings. One study shows how ducklings imprinted on a yellow rubber glove when glove was the first moving object they saw.
Weakness of Lorenz’s ideas - imprinting has a permanent effect on mating behaviour.
Guiton et al found that when chickens imprinted on yellow washing up glove, they would try to mate with them as adults. But with experience they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens. This shows that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent as Lorenz suggests.
Harry Harlows research on monkeys
16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers
one condition where wire mother dispensed milk and other condition where cloth mother dispensed milk.
Findings of Harlows study
Found that after three weeks, the baby monkeys spent on average 15 hours a day with the cloth mother.
No More than 1-2 hours a day were spent with the wire mother. Shows the baby monkeys valued ‘contact comfort’ provided from the cloth mother, rather than the food from the wire mother. Comfort is more important in attachment than food.
2 strengths of harlows research
Shows the importance of comfort in early attachments. Attachment is not a result of being fed by the mother figure, but is a result of contact comfort.
Practical application:
- Helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so can intervene to prevent it.
- the care of captive monkeys, now understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos
weakness of harlows study
ethical issues:
the monkeys suffered greatly as a result of harlows procedures.
Monkeys are seen as more similar to humans to the point we can generalise the findings.
This also means that their suffering was quite human-like.
Counter argument could be that the findings of Harlows research was sufficiently important to justify the effects.
