animal studies if attachment Flashcards
ethical reasoning for animal study
humans take longer to develop and grow so using animals is quicker
using animals allows researchers to have control over the environment of the animals so no unwanted influences can affect the experimental findings.
what is imprinting?
rapid learning which occurs during a brief receptive period typically soon after birth and establishes a long behavioural response to a specific individual to parent or offspring (Lorenz)
what was the procedure of Lorenz’s research?
-randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs.
-half hatched with the mother in their natural habitat, other half hatched in Incubators by Lorenz
- studied imprinting and it is instinctive
-each googling was marked and they had a box over them which they ran to whoever they imprinted on
what were the findings of Lorenz’s research?
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to have taken place. If imprinting does not occur straight after birth or within a few hours of hatching than the chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure
what is sexual imprinting?
Lorenz observed that the birds that imprinted on a human would later show courtship behaviour towards humans. in a case study, Lorenz found that a peacock would only try to mate with a tortoise as it was brought up in a reptile area in the zoo
One weakness of using animal studies
Generalising animal studies to humans may be inappropriate. In Lorenz’s study, he used birds which are not mammals whereas humans are. This means that it is more difficult to generalise to humans as we have an emotional attachment system which does not occur as quickly as precocial animals
Another weakness of using animal studies
Lorenz suggested that imprinting had a permanent effect on mating behaviour. However, Guiton et al (1966) showed that chickens who imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them, but with experience learned to prefer mating with other chickens. Therefore the impact of imprinting ism not as permanent as Lorenz had suggested
One strength of animal studies (imprinting)
Aegalin and Vallartigara (1995) supports the idea of imprinting. They conducted a study where chicks were exposed to simple shape combinators that moved. A range of shape combinators were then moved and they followed the original shape most closely. This supports the idea that young animals are born with innate mechanisms to imprint on a moving object present in the critical period of development.
What did Harlow find in his research with monkeys?
Harlow observed that newborns kept alone in a bare cage died but often survived if given something soft to cuddle which is called contact comfort.
what was Harlows procedure?
Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. in one experiment, he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire mothers. In one condition, the wire mother dispensed milk and in the second condition, the milk was dispensed through a cloth mother
what was Harlows findings?
-The baby monkeys cuddled the cloth mother in preference to the plain wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth mother when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk.
-this showed that the contact comfort mother was of more importance to the baby monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
what did Harlow find about the same monkeys as adults?
Harlow and his colleagues followed these monkeys until they were fully developed to see if they shown any maternal deprivation behaviour. The found that the baby monkeys with only the wire mother were the mot dysfunctional. However, those with cloth mothers were less sociable, more aggressive and unskilled at mating. When becoming mothers, the babies were often neglected, attacked or in some cases killed.
What did Harlow believe about the critical period for normal development?
like Lorenz, Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for attachments to form. A mother figure had to be introduced to a young monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. After this time, attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible
One strength of Halrows findings
Harlows findings have been extremely important in terms of the development of our understanding of human mother-infant attachment. Showing that contact comfort is of more importance than it is being fed which shows that the behavioural approach to attachment is somewhat false as classical conditioning is less important.
Counter-argument to Harlows research
however, it could be argued that, although similar, monkeys are not humans, so findings may not be generalisable. The nature of attachment in humans may be more complex.
