Animal Studies Flashcards
What was Lorenz procedure?
Divided a clutch of gosling eggs into two groups. One group was left with their natural mother while the other eggs were placed in an incubator.
- When the incubator eggs hatched the first living thing they saw was Lorenz and they soon started following him around.
- To test the effect of imprinting Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish them and placed them together; they had become imprinted on him.
- Both Lorenz and their natural mother were present.
What is imprinting?
An innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development, probably the first few hours after birth/ hatching. If it doesn’t happen at this time it probably will not happen.
What were Lorenz findings and conclusions?
Findings
- The goslings quickly divided themselves up, one following their natural mother and Lorenz’s group following him and showing no recognition of their natural mother.
-This suggests animals can imprint on a persistently present moving object seen within its first two days. - Lorenz found that
imprinting does not occur in some animals, for example curlews will not imprint on a human.
Conclusions
Imprinting is a process similar to attachment in that it binds a young animal to a caregiver in a special relationship.
- It occurs in the critical periods
- According to Lorenz, the process is irreversible and long lasting.
- It can impact on later mate preferences, called sexual imprinting. Some animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with
the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.
A03 - Lorenz - Guiton rubber
Guiton (1966) demonstrated that leghorn chicks, exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them during their first few weeks, became imprinted on the gloves.
- This supports the view that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object but probably on
any moving thing that is present during the critical window of development.
-Guiton also found that the male chickens later tried to mate with the gloves, showing that early imprinting is linked to later reproductive behaviour.
-Thus, research supports Lorenz’s research and conclusions.
mechanism’. Guiton (1966) found that he could reverse the imprinting in chickens who
had initially tried to mate with the rubber gloves. He found that later, after spending time with
their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens.
Imprinting may not, after all, be very different from any other kind of learning, challenging Lorenz’
original theory.
A03 - Lorenz - Ethical
The ethical acceptability of the research depends upon how one weighs up the significance of the harm caused to the animals against the insights gained. It also depends whether it is deemed
acceptable to use non-human animals in research methods which we would not use with humans.
What was Harlow’s procedure?
- Eight infant rhesus macaque monkeys were studied for a period of 165 days.
- Each placed in a cage with a cloth covered and a wire ‘mother’
- For four of the monkeys the milk bottle was on the cloth-covered mother and on the plain wire’
mother’ for the other four monkeys. - Measurements were made of the amount of time each infant spent with the two different
‘mothers’.
What were Harlow’s findings and conclusions?
-All eight monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth-covered mother whether or not this
mother had the feeding bottle.
-Those monkeys who fed from the wire mother only spent a short amount of time getting milk
and then returned to the cloth-covered mother.
-When frightened, all monkeys clung to the cloth-covered mother, and when playing with new
objects the monkeys
-Motherless monkeys developed badly
Attachment is based not upon feeding behaviour (as behaviourists argued) but upon contact
comfort. - It is important for infants to form an appropriate attachment during the first months of
life. Failure to do so is likely to have long term implications for social and sexual development.
A03 - Harlow - Ethics
Harlow’s research is ethically questionable. A study such as Harlow’s could not be done with humans but there is also the question of whether it should be done with monkeys.
The study created lasting emotional harm as the monkeys later found it difficult to form relationships with their peers.
On the other hand, the experiment can be justified in terms of the significant effect it has had on our understanding of the processes of attachment.
The research derived from this study
has been used to offer better care for human (and primate) infants. So, it could be argued that the
benefits outweigh the costs to the animals involved in the study.
