animal studies of attachment

Question 1

what is sexual imprinting, include case study

Answer 1

A: aimed to investigate the relationship between imprinting and adult male preferences

P/F: lorenz (1952) in a case study described a peacock that had imprinted on giant tortoise would later only direct courting behaviour towards giant tortoises

C:concluded that that peacock had undergone sexual imprinting

Question 2

outline lorenz research into imprinting

Answer 2

A: aimed to look at the phenomemon of imprinting in goslings

P: randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs (one half were hatched with mother goose in their natural environment; other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz)
mix the two groups together they would automatically split into their original groups

F: incubator group followed lorenz, control group followed the mother
found that geese follow the first moving object they see, during a 12-17 hours critical period after hatching

C: suggest that attachment is innate and programmed genetically

Question 3

strengths of lorenz’s research

Answer 3

P: support for the concept of imprinting

E: Regolin and vallortigara (1995) exposed chicks to a simple shape-combinations that moved and found that when shown a range of moving shapes the chicks followed these in preference to other shapes

A: this suggest that young animals are born with a innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object

C:
E:

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P: application to human behaviour

E: the concept of imprinting can explain some human behaviour, e.g. ‘baby duck syndrome’, computer users become attached to their first operating system

A: this means that imprinting is a meaningful process in humans

C:therefore, lorenz research on imprinting is of value in understanding human attachment-related behaviours

E: however, humans do not simply form their first true attachment to the first moving object they see, means that imprinting observed by lorenz in birds may be of limited value to understand the development of human attachment

Question 4

limitation in lorenz’s research

Answer 4

P: contradicting evidence
E: guiton et al (1996) found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults but with experience they eventually learnt to prefer other chickens

A: weakness because this suggest that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent as lorenz believed

C: therefore, there are extrapolation issues with animal studies, the attachment behaviour of geese is not the same as that of humans

E: this matters bc lorenz’s research might not be the best at explaining attachment behaviours

Question 5

outline harlow’s experiment into importance of contact comfort

Answer 5

A: aimed to prove that attachment isnt based on a feeding relationship that was previously thought

P: created two wire mothers (wrapped in cloth, one wasnt)
16 infant monkeys were studied for a period of 165 days.
in one condition, a feeding bottle was placed on the cloth monkey ; second condition, bottle was placed on the cloth covered mother
researchers recorded how long they spent with each mother and who they sought comfort from when frightened

F: found all 16 monkeys spent more time with cloth covered mother, those who had the bottle on the wire mother returned to the cloth mother straight after feeding, all monkeys went to the cloth mother when frightened for reassurance

C: suggest that monkeys do not develop attachment purely to the one who feeds them, but to the one offering support and ‘contact comfort’

Question 6

strength of harlow’s research

Answer 6

al value

E: harlow’s findings have had profound effect on psychologists’ undertstanding of human mother-infant attachment

A: harlow showed that attachment does not develop as the result of being fed by a mother figure, showed us the importance of quality of early relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships and successfully rear child

C: therefore, harlow’s research has theoretical value as it has contributed to our understanding of human attachment which influenced bowlby’s theory of attachment

E:

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P: has practical value

E: harlow’s research conclusions have helped social workers understand the risk factors in child neglect and abuse so to intervene to prevent it (Howe 1998)

A: findings are important in the care of captive monkeys, we understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoo and also in breeding programmes in the wild

C:this means that harlow’s research has benefitted both animals and humans

E: this matters because the insight into attachment from harlow’s research has had important applications in a range of practical contexts

Question 7

weakness of harlow’s research

Answer 7

P: ethical issues

E: the monkeys suffered greatly as a result of harlow’s procedure.

A:the species is now considered similar enough to humans to be able to generalise the findings, which means that their suffering was presumably quite human-like

C: the use of animals in research can be questioned on ethical grounds, could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched nor harmed. the pursuit of academic conclusions for human benefits could be seen as detrimental to non-human species

E:

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P: generalising from monkeys to humans

E: monkeys are clearly more similar to humans than Lorenz’s geese and all mammals share some similarities in their attachment systems

A: however they are not human and in some ways the human mind and behaviour are much more complex

C: therefore, it may not be appropriate to generalise harlow’s findings to human as it is unlikely that observations of monkeys clinging to cloth-covered wire models reflects the emotional connections and interaction that characterise human attachments

E: this matters because