Animal Studies Flashcards
What are the 2 main studies about in animal studies?
Lorenz - imprinting
Harlow - cupboard love theory of attachment
Explain Lorenz
Lorenz (1935)
Aim - To examine imprinting in non-human animals, which is when offspring follow and form an attachment bond with the first large moving object they see after birth.
Method - Lorenz randomly divided greylag goose eggs into 2 batches. One batch was the control group which were hatched naturally by the mother. The second batch was the experimental group which were placed in an incubator and Lorenz made sure that he was the first large moving objects the goslings saw. The behaviour of the goslings was recorded.
Results - Straight after birth, the naturally-hatched goslings followed their mother goose but the incubator-hatched goslings followed Lorenz. This occurred during the critical period which was 4-25 hours after hatching and the relationship formed was proved to be irreversible.
Conclusion - The results suggest that imprinting is a form of attachment that is shown after birds leave the nest early and imprint on the first large moving object they see.
Evaluate Lorenz
One limitation is that Lorenz only studied non-human animals which was a sample of greylag geese. This means that we are unable to generalise the results to humans because we cannot assume they would react in the same way to bird since infants tend to show more emotional reactions to their offspring compared to birds.
Explain Harlow
Harlow (1959)
Aim - To test the cupboard love theory on whether babies love mothers because they feed them.
Method - Harlow separated 16 rhesus monkeys after birth and placed them in cages with their surrogate mothers. One surrogate mother provided milk but not comfort since the rest of the body was made of wire, the second surrogate mother provided comfort because it was wrapped in a towel but not milk. A mechanical monkey was used to frighten the rhesus monkey and the time spent with each surrogate mother was recorded.
Results - The monkeys spent most of their time with the comfort mother that was wrapped in a towel and only went to the wired mother for milk. The infant monkey also returned to the cloth mother when frightened by the mechanical monkey. Monkeys without any cloth mother showed signs of stress.
Conclusion - His findings rejected the cupboard love theory because the monkeys were not attached to the wire mother with the food at all. Harlow argued that animals have an innate need for physical contact
What is the cupboard love theory?
The idea that infants become attached to their caregiver because their caregiver provides food.
