Animal Studies

Question 1

What was Harlow’s aim of his animal study?

Answer 1

He wanted to demonstrate that mother love (attachment) was not based on feeding bond like the mother and infant are presented in the learning theory

Question 2

Outline the study of Harlow

Answer 2

• two wire mothers (cloth and no cloth)
• 8 rhesus monkeys
• they were tested over 165 days
• 4 monkeys placed with no cloth mother and 4 placed with cloth mother
• measurements were taking of how time the monkeys spent with each mother

Question 3

What was found from Harlow’s study

Answer 3

• 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the clothed mother whether or not it had a feeding bottle
• shows that infants do develop an attachment to the person offering comfort

Question 4

What was the long lasting effect of Harlow’s study

Answer 4

• the motherless monkeys did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cuddle their own babies
• he found that their was a critical period for there effects
• if the motherless monkeys spent time with their monkeys(peers) they seem to recover but only if this happened before they were 3 months old if it was after 6 months they would not recover

Question 5

What was Lorenz aim

Answer 5

To study the effect on imprinting and it’s process of it

Question 6

Outline the study of Lorenz

Answer 6

• clutch of gosling eggs , natural mother and Lorenz
• they took the 2 groups and divided it , one group went with the biological mother and the another group was placed in the incubator
• when the incubator eggs hatched they started to follow Lorenz
• Lorenz mixed all the groups together to measure imprinting and found that the group had become imprinted to him

Question 7

What was the findings of Lorenz

Answer 7

• the goslings that followed Lorenz did not recognise their biological mothers and Lorenz knew that this was the process of imprinting
• the process of imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of the young animals life called critical period, If they are not exposed to an moving object at this time they will not imprint

Question 8

What are the long lasting effects of Lorenz study

Answer 8

Lorenz noticed that this early imprinting has an effect on later mate preferences called sexual imprinting
Animals especially birds will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon they which imprinted

Question 9

Briefly state evaluation of the animal studies

Answer 9

• LORENZ: other studies support is such as Guiton (1966) with the chicks and the yellow glove
• BOTH: can’t be generalised from animals to humans
• HARLOW: two different heads which are confounding variables - cloth mother had a more attractive head which shows lack of internal validity
• BOTH: it can be a useful point to understanding human behaviour. Similarities with Schaffer and Emerson as they found that infants were not attached to the person who fed them
• HARLOW: ethical issues caused distress and emotional harm

Question 10

What is imprinting

Answer 10

When the infant/offspring follows the first moving object after birth or hatching