Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
Imprinting
An innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development (probably a few hours after birth/hatching. If it doesn’t happen at this time it will probably will not happen).
Lorenz - aims and procedure
Aim: Ethologist who studied animal behaviour under relatively natural conditions.
Divided a clutch of gosling eggs into two groups - one group was left with their natural mother but the other group were in an incubator and the first thing they saw when they hatched was Lorenz. They started following him around. To test the effect of imprinting Lorenz marked ‘his’ goslings and put them back in the group with their natural mother.
Lorenz - findings
Lorenz’s goslings showed no sign of recognising their natural mother and continued to follow Lorenz. He concluded that imprinting in animals has to take place in a critical period (up to two days) and if they do not imprint in this time it will not happen.
Lorenz - long-lasting effects
Lorenz noted that imprinting is irreversible and long-lasting. It had a later effect on mate preferences (sexual imprinting). Animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.
Harlow - aims and procedure
Aim: sought to demonstrate that mother love (attachment) was not based on the feeding bond between mother and infant as predicted by the learning theory.
Created two wire ‘mother’ monkeys. One was bare wire the other was covered in a soft cloth. Eight infant rhesus monkeys were studied for 165 days. For four of the monkeys, the milk bottle was on the cloth-covered ‘mother’ and on the wire ‘mother’ for the other four monkeys. Measurements were made of how long the infants spent with each ‘mother’.
Harlow - findings
All monkeys spent most time with cloth-covered ‘mother’ whether she had the feeding bottle or not. If they fed from the wire ‘mother’ they only spent enough time to feed.
Findings support contact comfort.
Harlow - long-lasting effects
These monkeys grew up to be socially abnormal (froze or fled when approached by other monkeys) and sexually abnormal (didn’t show normal breeding behaviour or cuddle their own young).
Lorenz - Evaluation: Research support
- One strength of Lorenz’s research is the existence of support for the concept of imprinting.
- A study by Lucia Regolin and Giorgio Vallortigara (1995) supports Lorenz’s idea of imprinting. Chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved, such as a triangle with a rectangle in front. A range of shape combinations were then moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely.
- This supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving obiect present in the critical window of development, as predicted b Lorenz
Lorenz - Evaluation: Generalisability to humans
- One limitation of Lorenz’s studies is the ability to generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans.
- The mammalian attachment system is quite different and more complex than that in birds. For example, in mammals attachment is a two-way process, so it is not just the young who become attached to their mothers but also the mammalian mothers show an emotional attachment to their young.
- This means that it is probably not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
Harlow - Evaluation: Real World Value
- One strength of Harlow’s research is its important real-world applications.
- For example, it has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes (Howe 1998).
- We also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild.
- This means that the value of Harlow’s research is not just theoretical but also practical.
Harlow - Evaluation: Ethical Issues
