Animal studies of attachments

Question 1

Outline Lorenz’s research

Answer 1

• set up a classic experiment, randomly divided clutch of goose eggs
• 1/2 hatched by their mother (1st group)
• 1/2 hatched in an incubator where Lorenz was the first person they saw (2nd group)
• incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere,
• when two groups were mixed up the 1st group followed their mother everywhere and the 2nd continued to follow Lorenz everywhere
• this phenomena is called imprinting
• critical period, depending on species can be a few hours

Question 2

What did Lorenz find about sexual imprinting

Answer 2

• in a case study Lorenz described a peacock that had been reared in the reptile house of a zoo where the first moving object it saw were giant tortoises
• as an adult the bird would only show courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises

Question 3

Outline Harlow’s procedure

Answer 3

• he reared 16 Rhesus baby monkeys with two wire model mothers
• in one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother
• in the second condition the milk was dispensed from the cloth-covered mother

Question 4

What were his findings

Answer 4

• sought comfort from cloth comfort when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk

Question 5

When Harlow et al followed monkeys into adulthood what did they find

Answer 5

• did not develop normal social behaviour
• they were more aggressive
• less sociable
• bred less often as they were unskilled at mating
• some neglected their young and others attacked their children sometimes even killing them

Question 6

What did Harlow find was the critical development for normal development

Answer 6

• mother figure had to be introduced within 90 days for an attachment to form

Question 7

What is a limitation of Lorenz’s study

Answer 7

• problem generalising his findings to humans
• mammalian attachment is quite different than from that of birds
• mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young than birds

Question 8

What is another limitation of Lorenz’s study

Answer 8

• researches have questioned Lorenz’s conclusions
• Guiton et al found that chickens who imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults but with experience would learn to prefer mating with chickens
• impact of imprinting is not as serious as Lorenz believed

Question 9

What is a strength of Harlow’s research

Answer 9

• profound effect on psychologists understanding of human mother-infant attachment
• showed attachment does not develop as the result of being fed by a primary caregiver but as a result of contact comfort

Question 10

Give a limitation of Harlow’s study

Answer 10

• ethical issues
• Rhesus monkeys are considered to be similar enough to humans to be able to generalise the findings
• suffering was human-like