Animal Studies Of Attachment A01&3

Question 1

Lorenz (1952) imprinting procedure

Answer 1

-randomly divided 12 goose eggs, half hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
-mixed all goslings together to see who they’d follow

Question 2

Lorenz Imprinting findings&conclusions

Answer 2

-incubator group followed Lorenz
-control group followed mother
-identifies a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place if imprinting didn’t occur within that time, chicks did not attach themselves to the mother figure
-sexual imprinting also occurs, the birds acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate

Question 3

Harlow (1958) importance of contact comfort procedure

Answer 3

-Harlow reared 16 monkeys with two wire model “mothers”
•in one condition, milk was dispensed by the plain wire ‘mother’
•in the other, it was dispensed by the cloth covered ‘mothers’
-the monkeys preference was measured
-Harlow placed the monkeys in Novell situations with novel objects and added a noise-making teddy bear

Question 4

Harlow importance of contact comfort findings and conclusions

Answer 4

-baby monkeys cuddle the cloth mother in preference to the wired mother that dispensed milk
-suggests that contact comfort is more important than food in terms of attachment behaviour
-monkeys sought comfort from the cloth wire mother when frightened
-as adults, monkeys that went through maternal deprivation suffered severe consequences such as, more aggressive, less sociable, less skilled in mating also neglected and sometimes killed offspring

Question 5

Limitation of animal studies (Lorenz)

Answer 5

P- generalising findings and conclusions from birds to humans
E-for example mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young
E-the mammalian attachment system is quite different from that in birds
L- this means that it isn’t appropriate to generalise Lorenz ideas to humans

Question 6

Strength of imprinting

Answer 6

P-research support for the concept of imprinting
E-Guiton found that chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves and tried to mate with them as adults
E-young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in the critical period
L-suggests there is an innate mechanism causing a young animal to imprint

Question 7

Strength of Harlows research

Answer 7

P-harlows research has important practical applications
E-Howe, has helped social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and so intervene to prevent it
E-now understand importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild
L-usefulness of barloes research increases its value

Question 8

Limitation of harlows research

Answer 8

P-generalising from monkeys to humans
E- for example, human babies develop speech like communication this may influence the formation of attachments
E-psychologists disagree on the extent to which studies of non human primates can be generalised to humans
L-although monkeys are clearly more similar to humans than Lorenz geese, they’re not humans

Question 9

Limitation of harlows research

Answer 9

P-severe criticisms for the ethics of his research
E-