animal studies Flashcards
who are the 2 animal study researchers?
Harlow and Lorenz
Lorenz who was he?
ethologist who studied animal behaviour in their natural environment and relationship between newborns and mothers—> used observations to apply to caregiver-infant attachments in humans
what behaviour was Lorenz interested in?
imprinting- when offspring follows the first moving object they see when born —> if baby animals can imprint after such short time then attachment must be innate
Lorenz procedure
- divided large clutch of goose eggs randomly
- half eggs were hatched with mother goose in natural environment (control group)
- other half were hatched in an incubator where first moving object they saw was Lorenz (experimental grp)
- once all eggs hatched both groups of goslings were mixed up to observe behaviour
lorenz findings
- control grp followed mother and experimental grp followed Lorenz even when grps were mixed up
- Lorenz identified a critical period which imprinting needs to take place if it doesn’t occur in this period the attachment is not formed
- occurred in 4-25 hours (so quickly as animals can move from birth so need to stay close to someone for survival
Lorenz eval point 1
- Guiton et al (1966) has research support when he used a yellow rubber glove to cause imprinting on chicks —> chickens imprinted on gloves and tries to mate with them
BUT the chickens later on learnt to mate with chickens so imprinting is reversible not permanent and may be more simulate to learning rather than a form of attachment
Lorenz eval point 2
his findings lack generalisabilities as he used birds not humans —> human attachment more complex and different as it’s a 2 way process where both mother and baby attaches to each other meanwhile birds can imprint on inanimate objects
Lorenz eval point 4
can used findings of imprinting to understand some human behaviour such as feedback suggested computer users exhibit ‘baby duck syndrome’ = attachment formed to first computer operating system = they reject others
sexual imprinting- Lorenz
- Lorenz looked at case study of a peacock raised in a reptile house of a zoo—> peacock first saw a giant tortoise moving after hatching and as an adult the peacock only directed cartship behaviours towards giant tortoises
—> shows relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences and shows that imprinting has potential to be permanent
what did Harlow study
- attachment with rhesus monkeys as it was unethical to use human babies
- he observed that newborn rhesus monkeys died if kept alone in cage but survived if had soft cloth to cuddle so he investigated how attachment to mother= not based on feeding but on comfort
Harlow procedure
- 2 fake wire mothers created (1 had bare wire no padding and harsh, 1 was soft and covered in a cloth)
- both monkeys faces were different
- 4 conditions and 16 baby monkeys were split into the conditions
condition 1: wire mother offers milk and towelling mother offers no milk
condition 2: WM= offered no milk, TM= offers milk
condition 3: WM= offers milk
condition 4: TM= offers milk
DV= number of times the monkey goes to the mother as more times suggests a preference to them
Harlow findings
- monkeys preferred contact comfort in all conditions over food
- when wire mothers only there monkeys were distressed and had diarrhoea
- monkey preferred towelling mother no matter what
Harlow conclusion
there’s an innate drive for contact comfort (security) = suggests attachment forms through emotional need for security rather than food
what did Harlow find when he looked at monkeys who had been deprived of real mother into adulthood?
- when testing maternal deprivation effects
—> both groups of monkeys developed abnormally —> monkeys raised with plain wire mothers only were most aggressive and socially dysfunctional (attacked offspring etc)—> links to IWM
Harlow critical period?
- mother has to be introduced to young monkey within 90 days for attachment to form and for damage done by early deprivation to be reversible
what theory do Harlows findings go against?
learning theory which suggests attachment formed based on associated between caregiver and food
—> Harlow found monkeys don’t form attachments based on food but prefer contact comfort
Harlow eval point 1
- real world applications (Howe 1998) helped social workers understand lack of bonding experience may risk child development= they can intervene to prevent poor outcomes
—> animal care can also be improved in zoos etc
Harlow eval point 2
- hard to generalise findings to humans although monkeys are more similar to us than birds human brain and behaviour is still more complex
Harlow eval point 3
- ethical issues monkeys were in severe long term distress BUT findings helped with practical applications e.g. in nurseries children now often have one person they spend lots of time with (key worker) rather than multiple
