Animal Studies Of Attachment Flashcards
What was the procedure for Lorenz’s study of imprinting?
Lorenz randomly split a clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
Who did the incubator group follow and who did the control group follow?
The incubator group followed Lorenz whereas the control group followed the mother who’s hatched them.
Who did the two groups follow when they were mixed up?
The control group continued to follow their mother and the experimental group continued to follow Lorenz.
What is imprinting?
A bird species that is mobile from birth attaches to and follows the first moving object they see.
What is the critical period?
A time period which imprinting needs to occur.
What did Lorenz find that happens if imprinting doesn’t occur within critical period?
Lorenz found that chicks didn’t attach themselves to a mother figure.
What did Lorenz observe with birds that imprinted on a human?
They would later display courtship behaviour towards humans.
Describe Lorenz’s case study on a peacock who was reared in a reptile house of a zoo
The first moving object the peacock saw after hatching was a giant tortoise and as an adult the peacock only directed courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises which Lorenz concluded to mean that the peacock had undergone sexual imprinting.
Lorenz evaluation: Research support
Regolin and Vallortigara showed chicks shape combinations that moved e.g. a triangle with a rectangle in front. It was found chicks followed the original the most closely which supports the view that young animals are born with an innate ability to imprint on a moving object present in the critical period.
Lorenz evaluation: generalisability to humans
The mamal attachment system is different and more complex than in birds which means that it probably isn’t appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
What type of monkeys did Harlow work with?
Rhesus monkeys.
What did Harlow observe that happened to newborns who were kept alone in a bare cage?
They often died but survived if given something like a cloth to cuddle.
What idea did Harlow test?
That a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother.
What was the procedure of Harlow’s study?
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 mother.
What were the findings of Harlow’s study?
Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain wire mother and sought comfort with the cloth mother when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk.
What did the findings of Harlow’s study suggest?
‘Contact comfort’ was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
Which monkeys were the most dysfunctional later on in their life?
Monkeys who reared with the plain-wire mother only.
What happened to the monkeys who reared with a cloth-covered mother?
They didnt develop normal social behaviour.
What were the deprived monkeys compared to other monkeys?
More aggressive, less sociable and were unskilled at mating.
When the deprived monkeys became mothers what did they do?
Neglected their young and others attacked their children sometimes killing them.
What did Harlow conclude there was for attachment formation and how long was this?
A critical period of 90 days and after this attachment was impossible and damage done by early deprivation was irreversible.
Harlow evaluation: real world value
Harlow’s research has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that lack of bonding experience might be a risk factor in child development. This means the value of Harlow’s research is practical and theoretical.
Harlow evaluation: generalisability to humans
Rhesus monkeys are more similar to humans than Lorenz’s geese but the human behaviour and brain is still more complex which means it might not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans.
