Animal studies into attachment Flashcards
Who studied attachment in animal studies?
Harlow – Contact Comfort
Lorenz - Imprinting
What did Lorenz research?
Was the first to observe “imprinting” as an attachment.
As a child he was given a duck that was newly hatched- this duck followed him around everywhere.
As an adult he conducted his famous experiment
What did Lorenz do, find and conclude?
Lorenz divided a clutch of goose eggs into two groups; ½ hatched with their natural mother in a natural setting & ½ hatched in an incubator where Lorenz was the first person they saw.
The incubator group followed him everywhere, whereas the other group followed their mother around.
There is a critical period, imprinting needs to happen during a certain time after birth; can be as brief as a few hours after hatching.
What are the limitations of Lorenz’s research?
Lorenz’s research was on birds – so difficulty relating his findings to humans. It is suggested that human attachment is quite different (and more complex) compared to attachments formed in birds. So, therefore, it might not be appropriate to generalise his findings to explain human attachment.
Some of Lorenz’s conclusions have been questioned by psychologists. Many have now a suggested that imprinting is not as permanent as Lorenz suggested and that it can be reversed if animal is exposed to their own species. Therefore Lorenz’s conclusions may lack validity as imprinting can change due to experience.
What did Harlow (1958) research?
Harlow carried out one of the most influential pieces of animal research on attachment. He worked with baby rhesus monkeys – more similar to humans than birds.
What’s contact comfort?
Harlow observed that new-born monkeys kept alone in a bare cage usually died if they were not given something soft to cuddle (e.g. a cloth nappy) and they seemed to become attached to this showing separation anxiety when it was removed for washing.
This discovery led Harlow to investigate attachments, how they’re formed and what ‘requirements’ are needed for them to develop.
What did Harlow (1958) do and find?
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 model ‘mothers’ (see picture on facing page). In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother.
It was found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk. This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
What were Harlow’s short term findings?
Baby monkeys cuddled the soft ‘cloth’ mother in preference to the wire one that provided food – suggesting that contact comfort is more important that food when it comes to attachment behaviour.
Monkeys also ran to the cloth mother when frightened seeking comfort.
What were Harlow’s long term findings?
Harlow followed this monkeys (deprived of their real mothers) into adulthood and found they had severe problems – more aggressive, less sociable, less interested in mating and if they did, often neglected and even killed their own offspring.
What did Harlow conclude?
Harlow CONCLUDED there is a critical period for normal attachment development.
It is thought that a mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days (3 months) from birth for an attachment to form.
After this time, an attachment was impossible - failure to form this initial attachment damaged the monkey permanently (as they had missed the critical period).
What’s a strength of Harlow’s research?
Harlow’s findings have had a profound effect on our understanding of attachment. Harlow showed how important contact comfort was for a child’s healthy development and how our early attachments influence our later social development. So thanks to Harlow we have a greater understanding of child-rearing practices and what we need to do/avoid to ensure healthy childhood development
What’s a limitation of Harlow’s research?
Harlow faced severe criticisms/backlash for his research. The monkeys in his study suffered greatly from what he did to them, often causing permanent damage or death and Harlow was fully aware of the suffering he was causing to them. This is a concern because monkeys are considered a close enough species to generalise findings from, therefore it has been argued that their suffering would be “human like” and therefore not acceptable/unethical.
