Animal studies on attachments

Question 1

What are the two key animal studies?

Answer 1

Lorenz and Harlow

Question 2

What do animal studies on attachment look at?

Answer 2

The formation of early bonds between non human parents and their offspring. It’s import at as the behaviour is common to a range in species and can help understand human attachments

Question 3

Imprinting

Answer 3

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during an early-life critical period

Question 4

What is a critical period?

Answer 4

• Bowlby suggested that there is a critical period at around 2 years when the infant attachment system is active.
• He viewed this more as a sensitive period, if attachment has not formed by now the child will struggle to form future attachments

Question 5

What was Lorenz’s aim?

Answer 5

to investigate mechanisms of imprinting

Question 6

What was Lorenz’s procedure?

Answer 6

he randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs, where half the eggs were hatched with the mother (natural environment) and half in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz. Their behaviour was observed

Question 7

What were Lorenz’s findings?

Answer 7

• Immediately after birth incubated goslings followed lorenz and the naturally hatched goslings followed the mother.
• They did the same after the upturned box was removed. The incubated goslings showed no bond with their mother
• Goslings imprinted on humans would later try to mate with humans.

Question 8

When did Lorenz find imprinting occurred?

Answer 8

Lorenz noted that imprinting occurred between 4 and 25 hours after hatching

Question 9

Sexual imprinting

Answer 9

Birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans -> Lorenz (1952)

Question 10

Lorenz evaluation

Answer 10

• Research support, Guiton (1966), Lorenz (1952) peacock and tortoise
• Dispute over characteristics of imprinting, Hoffman (1996) and Guiton (1966)
• Problem of generalising from birds to humans as it’s different

Question 11

Guiton (1966)

Answer 11

Leghorn chicks fed with yellow rubber gloves imprinted on the gloves, and males which had done so later tried to mate with the gloves. However this imprinting could be reversed and normal sexual behaviour learned.

Question 12

Hoffman (1996)

Answer 12

Imprinting is a more ‘plastic and forgiving mechanism’

Question 13

How did Harlow use rhesus monkeys?

Answer 13

Harlow used rhesus monkeys to see if attachments are formed through food as like the Learning Theory.

Question 14

Harlow’s 1959 Rhesus Study

Answer 14

New born monkeys were separated from their mothers and raised in cages. In each cage was a ‘baby blanket’ and the infant monkeys became distressed whenever the blanket was removed, a similar reaction to when baby monkeys are separated from their mothers. This suggested that attachment was not based on association with food.

Question 15

What was the aim of Harlows (1959) study?

Answer 15

To test learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in baby monkeys given a wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother with no milk

Question 16

What was the procedure of Harlows (1959) study?

Answer 16

The amount of time and feeding time spent with each mother was recorded. The monkeys were frightened with a loud noise to test for mother preference during stress. A larger cage was also used to test the monkeys’ degree of exploration.

Question 17

What surrogate mothers were used in Harlow’s (1959) study?

Answer 17

Two types of surrogate mother was constructed - a harsh ‘wire mother’ and a soft towelling mother’.

Question 18

How many baby monkeys were used in Harlow’s study?

Answer 18

Sixteen baby monkeys were used, four in each of four conditions.

Question 19

What were the four conditions in Harlows (1959) study?

Answer 19

1. A cage containing a wire mother producing milk and a towelling mother producing no milk.
2. A cage containing a wire mother producing no milk and towelling mother producing milk.
3. A cage containing a wire mother producing milk.
4. A cage containing a towelling mother producing milk.

Question 20

What were the findings of Harlow’s (1959) study in regards to the towelling mother?

Answer 20

• Monkeys preferred towelling mother when given a choice of surrogate mothers, regardless of it producing milk
• They even stretched across to the wire mother to feed while still clinging to the towelling mother.

Question 21

What were the findings of Harlow’s (1959) study in regards to the wire mother?

Answer 21

Monkeys with only a wire surrogate had diarrhoea, a sign of distress.

Question 22

What did the monkeys do when there was a loud sound in Harlow’s study?

Answer 22

When frightened by a loud noise, monkeys clung to the towelling mother

Question 23

What took place when the monkeys in Harlow’s )study when they were put in a larger cage?

Answer 23

• In the larger cage, monkeys with towelling mothers explored more and visited their surrogate mother more often

Question 24

What was the conclusion of Harlow’s (1959) study?

Answer 24

Rhesus monkeys have an innate, unlearned need for contact comfort, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food.

Question 25

Harlow et al (1965)

Answer 25

-Raised monkeys in isolation for 3,6,12,24 months. When exposed to other monkeys, physical signs of disturbance were seen, as monkeys were fearful & attacked others, rocked repeatedly and harmed themselves in various ways.

Question 26

-The degree of disturbance positively correlated with the amount of time spent in isolation.

Question 27

-As adults, sexual behaviour was avoided, and Harlow had these monkeys be raped to see how they would cope as parents.

Question 28

-As parents, they were abusive and neglectful towards their children, one monkey actually beat their child's head to a pulp.

Question 29

-Other monkeys were raised in isolation, then spent time with normally raised 'therapy monkeys' who encouraged their behaviour to be normal. This shows that the effects of total isolation are reversable.

Question 30

Harlow and Suomi (1972)

Answer 30

raised 4 newborn monkeys in isolation for 6 months, then placed each one with a normally raised three-month old female 'therapist' monkey for two hours three times a week, gradually increasing the amount of contact time.

Question 31

After 12 months their behaviour was almost normal and by 3yrs they had totally recovered and were able to live among normally raised monkeys. This suggests that the effects of total isolation are reversible.

Question 32

What are the strengths of Harlow's research?

Answer 32

- Theoretical value, profound effect on psychologists understanding of human- infant attachment - Harlow's research showed that attachment doesn't occur due to being fed by a mother figure - it is due to contact comfort, shows the importance of internal working model

Question 33

- Practical value, important practical applications for example, it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so can prevent it and, these findings are also important in the care of monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild where it's necessary to have proper attachment figures for baby monkeys and not to separate the baby from it's mother!

Question 34

What are the weaknesses of harlow's research?

Answer 34

- ethical issues, created lasting emotional harm on monkeys as they couldn't form relationships, Sackett (2002)

Question 35

- problems generalising to humans, as human behaviour is governed by conscious decisions and we cannot attain how animals make decisions.

Question 36

Sackett (2002)

Answer 36

Student of harlow's believes his research was so unethical and unjustifiable that the american animal liberation movement was born out of it and many of the monkeys died