Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow Flashcards
Lorenz gosling experiment: aims and procedure and conclusion
aim: whether attachment is innate or not, whether animals form attachments to one single subject (imprinting on first large,moving object seen)
procedure:
-12 goose eggss plit into 2 batches. 6 goslings were hatched with their mother,6 in an incubator with Lorenz.
-Once goslings had hatched they proceeded to follow the first moving object that they saw between 13 & 16 hours after hatching around, having imprinted on them
-goslings hatched with mother imprinted on mother, and Lorenz made sure he was the first large moving objects seen by the goslings, so they imprinted on him.
-he found this imprinting to be irreversible and innate(occured just after being born)
-longevity of the goslings’ bond with Lorenz would support the view that, on some level, early attachment experiences do predict future bonds
Harlow monkey experiment: aims and procedure and conclusion
8 rhesus monkeys which were caged from infancy with wire mesh food dispensing and cloth-covered surrogate mothers, to investigate whether contact comfort or food would have more attachment behaviours directed towards it.
-Harlow measured the amount time that monkeys spent with each surrogate mother and the amount time that they cried for their biological mother.
-attachment behaviours to cloth covered when frightened by loud noise
-monkeys in isolation with the surrogate mothers all displayed dysfunctional adult behaviour e.g becoming inadequate mothers, difficulty mating, timidness -> monkeys in social environments became healthy adults
-food is not as crucial as comfort when forming a bond.
-The fact that isolated monkeys displayed long-term dysfunctional behaviour illustrates early attachment experiences predict long-term social development.
-Despite being fed, isolated monkeys failed to develop functional social behaviour, which would suggest that animals have greater needs that just the provision of food.
Animal studies of attachment: evaluation: Strength 1
Green (1994) states that, on a biological level at least, all mammals (including rhesus monkeys) have the same brain structure as humans; the only differences relates to size and the number of connections.
Animal studies of attachment: evaluation: Strength 2
Harlow’s research has profound implications for childcare. Due to the importance of early experiences on long-term development, it is vital that all of children’s needs are catered for; taking care of a child’s physical needs alone is not sufficient.
Animal studies of attachment: evaluation: Limitation 1
It is questionable whether findings and conclusions can be extrapolated and applied to complex human behaviours. It is unlikely that observations of goslings following a researcher or rhesus monkeys clinging to cloth-covered wire models reflects the emotional connections and interaction that characterises human attachments, so results not generalisable to humans.
Animal studies of attachment: evaluation: Limitation 2
The use of animals in research can be questioned on ethical grounds. It could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched/ harmed. The pursuit of academic conclusions for human benefits could be seen as detrimental to non-human species. In Harlows experiment monkeys were pruposefully frightened where they showed signs of stress including rocking and diarrhea suggesting psychological harm was inflicted, so it doesnt follow the ethical guidelines of ‘protection from harm’.
