Animal Studies Flashcards
Describe Lorenz’s procedure
Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs.
1/2 in an incubator
1/2 with mother
Describe Lorenz’s findings
Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere
Control group followed mother
Critical period where imprinting needed to happen otherwise no attachment.
Describe sexual imprinting
Eg.
Peacock imprinted on tortoise and then tried to mate with the tortoise
Describe one limitation of lorenz’s research (AO3)
Generalisability
Problems when generalising findings from birds to humans
Mammalian attachment very different from birds as they may be able to form attachments at any time not just infancy.
Describe another limitation of Lorenz’s research (AO3)
Guiton et al: found when chickens imprinted on yellow gloves would try to mate with it as an adult. They then later learnt to mate with other chickens.
Imprinting not permanent
Describe Harlow’s Procedure
16 baby monkeys with two mothers. One wire which dispensed milk. One covered in cloth.
Time spent on each mother was calculated.
Describe Harlow findings
Baby monkeys cuddled soft object in preference to wire one with food. Contact comfort more important
Describe what happened to the maternally deprived monkeys
Grew up socially dysfunctional and neglected their young, often killed them.
Describe the critical period of harlows monkeys
90 days for an attatchment to form.
Describe one strength of Harlow’s research (AO3)
Helped social workers understand risks for child development (Howe)
Helps understand how to care for captured monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild.
Describe one limitation of Harlows research (AO3)
Monkeys suffered a lot and it is similar to human suffering as we are able to generalise.
Harlow acknowledged this but the findings are very useful so was it worth it (probably)
