Animal studies: Lorenz and Harlow Flashcards
what was Lorenz’s aim?
to examine imprinting in non-human animals
what was Lorenz’s procedure?
-Divide goose-eggs into 2 batches.
-One CONTROL hatched naturally by mother and one EXPERIMENTAL hatched by an incubator with Lorenz being the FIRST large moving object they saw.
-marked goslings depending on their condition and placed them under a cardboard box, removed it and recorded their behaviour.
what did Lorenz find?
Naturally hatched followed their mother but the incubator hatched followed Lorenz, showing no attachment to biological mother.
imprinting only occurred within a critical 4-25 hour period after hatching.
what was Harlows aim?
to examine extent to which comfort and food influence attachment in baby monkeys
what was Harlows procedure?
-experimented 16 monkeys with a wire mother monkey dispensing milk, and the other a second condition by a cloth-covered monkey.
what were Harlows findings?
-monkeys cuddled cloth mother in preference to the wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth mother when frightened by noise.
THIS SHOWS THAT:
contact comfort was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
what did harlow find about the monkeys deprived of a real mother after following up?
-the monkeys reared with wire mothers were more dysfunctional
-even cloth covered monkeys did not develop normal social behaviour.
-deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable, unskilled at mating, and even neglecting or killing their young
what was Harlows critical period for attachment formation?
a mother had to be introduced to monkeys within 90DAYS for an attachment to form, after this attachment becomes impossible.
