Animal Studies Of Attachment Flashcards
Lorenz research overview
Procedure - Lorenz should put a clutch of goose eggs, half hatched with bio mother in natural environment and other half hatched with him in incubator where first moving thing they saw was Lorenz
FINDINGS- imprinting occurred in both sets, bird species attach to and follow first moving object they see - first few hours
Lorenz Evaluation
Generalisability to humans - although this has helped understanding of human development, it is hard to generalise from bird findings to humans. It is known that mammalian attachment system is quite different from that in birds- mammalian mothers show more emotion
Some of Lorenz observations have been questioned-
Lorenz states that imprinting have permanent effect on human behaviour . GUITON ET AL 1966 found that if chicken imprinted on yellow washing up gloves, they would try to mate but eventually try and mate with other chickens
-imprinting does take place but natural instincts take over
Hallows research overview
Procedure- Harlow 1958 tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire model
-in one condition milk was despensed by the plain wire mother whereas in the second condition milk was given by cloth covered mo
FINDINGS
baby monkeys cuddled soft object and that contact confront was more important than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Harlows maternal deprived monkeys as adults
Maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
The monkeys reared with the wire mothers only were the most dysfuncutionsk
- as mothers some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attached their children, even killing them in some cases
ANIMAL STUDIES FOUND CRITICAL PERIOD
Harlow and Lorenz concluded that there was a critical period for this behaviour,
A mother figure had to be introduced within 90 days for an attachment to form,
After this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible
Evaluation - theoretical value
Harlows findings have had a profound effect on psychologists understanding of mother infant attachment, most importantly Harlow showed that attachment does not develop as the result of being fed by a mother future BUT as a result of constant comfort.
Harlow showed that the importance of quality of early relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships and successfully rear children
Evaluation- practical value
The insight into attachment from harlows research has had important applications in a range of practical contexts, it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so intervene to prevent it
Evaluation - ethical issues
Harlow faced severe criticism for the ethics of his research
The monkeys suffered greatly as a result of his research
This species is considered similar enough to humans to be able to generalise findings which means that suffering was presumably quite human like
- counter argument is that harlows research was sufficiently important to justify the effects
