animal studies of attachment

Question 1

What is imprinting?

Answer 1

tendency to form a rapid attachment to the first large moving object seen after birth

Question 2

What is the critical period?

Answer 2

The period in which attachment has to form.

Question 3

What is the critical period in geese?

Answer 3

-between 13-16 hours
-past 32 hours it will not happen.

Question 4

What happens if attachment does not form during the critical period?

Answer 4

Will not happen

Question 5

Why is imprinting in animals important?

Answer 5

-Important for survival- mother moves around to forage and escape predators, the young must
remain close to survive and therefore this behaviour has evolved to promote survival.

Question 6

What was the experimental design, IV and DV of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 6

-Experimental Design: Independent Measures
-IV: Whether goslings grew up with their mother or in an incubator/Lorenz
-DV: Who the ducks will follow when in a room with Mother and Lorenz

Question 7

What was the procedure of Lorenz’s study?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What animal did Lorenz study?

Answer 8

Goslings

Question 9

What were the findings of Lorenz’s study? What did he conclude?

Answer 9

-The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group hatched in the presence of their mother followed her, even when mixed up and in the presence of both.
-Conclusion: baby animals will imprint on the first moving object they see regardless of whether its
their mother or not

Question 10

What was the experimental design, IV and DV of Harlow’s study?

Answer 10

-Experimental Design: Independent Measures
-IV: Whether the ‘mother’ dispensed milk or not
-DV: Which model mother the monkey would show more attachment to

Question 11

What was the procedure of Harlow’s study?

Answer 11

-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. In one condition, milk was dispensed by plan-wire model ‘mother’ whereas in a second condition milk was dispensed by cloth-covered ‘mother’.

Question 12

What animal did Harlow study?

Answer 12

Baby Monkeys

Question 13

What were the findings of Harlow’s study? What did he conclude?

Answer 13

-Findings: The baby monkeys cuddled with the cloth-covered ‘mother’ in preference to the plain-
wire ‘mother’ and sough comfort from the cloth one when frightened regardless of which mother
dispensed milk.
-Conclusion: ‘Contact-comfort’ is of more importance to animals than food when it comes to
attachment behaviour

Question 14

What are the strengths of animal studies of attachment?

Answer 14

-Strength for Lorenz’s research- additional support for imprinting.
-Strength of Harlow’s research- important real-world applications.

Question 15

What are the limitations of animal studies of attachment?

Answer 15

-UNETHICAL
-inability to generalize findings and conclusions from animals to humans.

Question 16

Explain the strength of animal studies of attachment that: Lorenz’s research has additional support for imprinting

Answer 16

-Regolin and 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 object present in the critical window of development, as predicted by Lorenz.

Question 17

Explain the strength of animal studies of attachment that: Harlow’s research has important real-world applications.

Answer 17

-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 for outcomes (Howe 1998).
-We also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programs in the wild.
-This means that the value of Harlow’s research is not just theoretical but also practical.

Question 18

Explain the limitation of animal studies of attachment that: they are unethical

Answer 18

-Harlow’s research caused severe and long-term distress to the monkeys.
-Researchers found that maternally deprived monkeys reared with plain-wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional, however even those reared with cloth-covered mothers did not develop normal social behaviours.
-These deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and bred
less due to being unskilled at mating. When they became mothers, some neglected, attacked, and even killed their young.
-This shows that Harlow’s studies caused severe irreversible psychological harm.

Question 19

Explain the limitation of animal studies of attachment that: findings cannot be generalised

Answer 19

-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 that become
attached to the mothers but the mothers also show an emotional attachment to their young.
-This means that it is not very
appropriate to generalize Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
-Harlow’s research is also difficult to generalize from monkeys to humans.
-Rhesus monkey are much more similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds, and all mammals share some common attachment behaviours.
-However, the human brain and human behaviours are still more complex than monkeys’, meaning that it may not be appropriate to generalize Harlow’s findings to humans.