animal studies of attachment

Question 1

animal studies definition

Answer 1

in psychology these are studies carried out on a non-human animal species rather than on humans, either for ethical or practical reasons - practical because animals breed faster and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation of animals

Question 2

who did research on animal attachment

Answer 2

-Lorenz
-Harlow

Question 3

ethologist research on animal studies in early 20th study

Answer 3

conducted animal studies of the relationship between new born animals and their mothers. their observation informed psychologists’ understanding of care-giver infant attachment in humans. one of the most ethologists was Lorenz

Question 4

when did Lorez do research

Answer 4

1952

Question 5

what did lorez do his study on

Answer 5

imprinting

Question 6

when did lorenz first observe the phenomenon of imprinting

Answer 6

when he was a child and a neighbour gave a newly hatched duckling that followed him around

Question 7

what was Lorez procedure

Answer 7

randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. half of the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz

Question 8

what was Lorenz findings -observations

Answer 8

-the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere but the control who hatched in presence of the mother followed her. even when the 2 groups were mixed the control group continued to follow the mother and experimental group followed Lorenz

Question 9

lorenz findings

Answer 9

imprinting where a bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after birth or hatching. if imprinting does not occur within that time lorenz found the chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure

Question 10

what study on sexual imprinting did Lorenz do

Answer 10

relationship between imprinting and adult mate preference, he observed that birds could be imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans

Question 11

Lorenz 1952 sexual imprinting case study

Answer 11

described a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving objects the peacock saw after hatching were giant tortoise’s. as an adult this bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises. Lorenz concluded this meant the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting

Question 12

what animal did Harlow work with

Answer 12

rhesus monkeys

Question 13

why is Harlow’s study potentially better than Lorenz

Answer 13

because the monkeys are more similar to humans than lorenz’s birds

Question 14

what did Harlow observe

Answer 14

newborns kept in a bare cage alone often died but they usually survived if given something soft like a cloth to cuddle

Question 15

when did Harlow do research

Answer 15

1958

Question 16

what is Harlow procedure

Answer 16

tested the idea that soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. in one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model mothers. 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

Question 17

Harlow findings

Answer 17

the baby monkeys cuddles the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain-wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened such as by a noisy mechanical teddy bear regardless of if the cloth-covered mother or plain-wire mother was dispensing milk. this showed that contact comfort was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behvaiour

Question 18

what effect did maternal deprivation have

Answer 18

severe consequences

Question 19

how did Harlow see if deprivation had effects

Answer 19

followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood to see if this maternal deprivation had a permeant effect. researchers found severe consequences

Question 20

maternally deprived monkeys as adults

Answer 20

the monkeys reared with the plain-wire mother only were the most dysfunctional. However, even those with reared with cloth -covered mother did not develop normal social behvaiour. these deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable than the other monkeys and they bred less often than is typical for monkeys, being unskilled for mating. when they become mothers, some the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases

Question 21

harlow research - critical period for normal development

Answer 21

like lorenz harlow concluded that there was a critical period for attachment formation - 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 damage done by early deprivation became irreversible

Question 22

critical period for monkeys

Answer 22

90 days

Question 23

strength of Lorenz’s research - research support

Answer 23

-there is existence of support for the concept of imprinting
-Regolin and valloritigara 1955 supports Lorenz 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 –> supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint in a moving object in the critical period as predicted by Lorenz

Question 24

limitation of Lorenz’s research - generalisability to humans

Answer 24

-lack of ability to be able to generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans
-mammalian attachment system is quite different and more complex than birds. for example, in mammals attachment is a 2 way processes, 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 –> probably not appropriate to generalise lorenz to humans

Question 25

evaluation of Lorenz’s research- applications to understanding human behaviour

Answer 25

-although human attachment is very different from that in birds there have been attempts to use the idea that some kind of imprinting explains human behaviour. for example Seebach 2005 suggested that computer users exhibit ‘baby duck syndrome’ - which is the attachment formed to their first computer operating system, leading them to reject others

Question 26

strength of Harlow’s research - real-world value

Answer 26

-important real-world applications
-for example, it ahs 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 –> means that the value of harlow’s research is not just theoretical but also practical

Question 27

limitation of Harlow’s research - generalisability to humans

Answer 27

-lack of ability to generalise findings and conclusions from monkeys to humans
-Rhesus monkeys are much more similar to humans than lorenz’s birds and all mammals share some common attachment behaviours. however, the human brain and human behvaiour is still more complex than that of monkeys –> means that it may not be appropriate to generalise harlow’s findings to humans

Question 28

evaluation of Harlow’s research - ethical issues

Answer 28

harlow’s research caused severe and long-term distress to the monkeys. however, his findings and conclusions have important theoretical and practical applications