Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
attachments
Who was Lorenz and what was his research?
He was an ethologist who developed the concept of imprinting
In 1935 he carried out a study whereby he split several goose eggs into two groups
The first group (control) stayed with their mother and the second group was placed in an incubator where Lorenz ensured he was the first thing they saw
A few hours after hatching, he mixed them up in a large container, the first group went to their mother and the second to Lorenz
What two key principles were developed from Lorenz’s research?
Imprinting
Critical period
What is imprinting?
Refers to how the young of precocial species think that the first moving thing they see is their mother and they follow this object
What is the critical period?
Lorenz believed that imprinting had to occur within a set time or it couldn’t happen. His experiments showed that imprinting mostly occurred within 13-16 hours and he believed that the ‘cut off’ was 32 hours. He argued that after this point imprinting is nearly impossible
What is a precocial species?
Those born mobile, with their eyes open
What is a partial strength of Lorenz’s research?
Guiton (1966)- Leghorn chicks imprinted on a yellow rubber glove which was used for feeding. They later tried to make with the glove
BUT after spending time with their own species, they engaged in normal sexual behaviour- suggests that imprinting is possible outside of the critical period and the process is reversible
What is a limitation of Lorenz’s research?
It has little if any relevance to explaining or understanding human attachment- humans are no precocial species- the first moving object they see is normally a medical professional rather than their mother or father and most babies don’t attach to the midwife
So this limits the generalisation of the theory
Who was Harlow and what was his research?
He studied rhesus monkeys who had been separated from their mother shortly after birth and so had never formed attachments.
in one study he put them in a cage with two ‘mothers’ one was soft and warm but the other was wire and provided food. The test was which mother the monkey preferred
What were the findings of Harlow’s research?
The monkeys preferred the cloth mother and stayed with it for around 18 hours but only spent around 2 hours with the wire one
When sacred, they went to the cloth mother showing that warmth and comfort was more important to them than food was.
What happened to the monkeys social interactions?
As Harlow completely isolated the monkeys for the first few months of their lives from any other real rhesus monkeys, they found that the monkeys did not interact well with each other. they were aggressive and unable to mate successfully to begin with.
When they became mothers, they had nothing to base their attachment off and often failed to attach to their child, in some cases killing them.
What’s a strength of Harlow’s research?
Very influential- helps understand the importance of comfort within attachment. John Watson wrote a chapter titled ‘Too much mother love’ claiming that you shouldn’t hug or kiss your child. This new research was quite groundbreaking in the importance of early attachments not just being about feeding an infant to help them survive.
What’s a limitation of Harlow’s research?
Confounding variables- the two mothers looked different other than just being wire and cloth. e.g. their faces looked very different. So they may have just gone to the mother whose face they preferred rather than for food or comfort.
What are the ethical problems?
The monkeys experienced physical and psychological harm
they were separated from their mothers at birth and harmed their own children later in life
