Animal study of A Flashcards
What did Lorenz do with a clutch of gosling eggs and what did he find?
- divided them into 2 groups
- 1 = natural mother 1 = incubator
- 1st thing incubator eggs saw (living/moving) = Lorenz
- Followed L around - no recognition of natural mother
What did Lorenz conclude from his experiment?
- process of imprinting restricted to CP
- suggest animals imprint on persistently moving objects within first 2 days
- process irreversible + influenced later mating preferences (sexual imprinting)
- Animals, birds esp mate with same object upon which they were imprinted
What type of animal did Lorenz find did not imprint on humans?
Curlews
As well as imprinting being irreversible, what else did the kind of object upon which the animal imprinted on have a affect on as noted by Lorenz?
Later mating preferences (sexual imprinting)
What other study by Gution supports the view that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object as suggested by Lorenz?
G: demonstrated leghorn chick imprinted on yellow rubber gloves
-imprinted on anything during CP window
+ male chickens attempted to mate with gloves = imprinting linked to later reproductive behaviour
What is imprinting?
an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development. Assumed if not happed during window, probably not likely to happen.
What was the idea of imprinting originally thought to be regarding its effects?
Irreversible
What did Guiton find regarding imprinting being irreversible?
G: could reverse imprinting on chicken who initially tried to mate with rubber glove
- after spending time w/ own species = normal engagement + sexual behaviours
What is the notion imprinting arguably believed to be similar to?
Any other kind of learning
- can take place rapidly with little conscience effort
- fairly reversible
What did Harlow do with 8 infant monkeys over a period of 165 days?
-4 = milk bottle on cloth mother, 4 = plain wire mother
-time measurements made of amount of time spent with two different mothers
+ observations of response to frightening stimulus (mechanical teddy)
What were Harlow’s findings?
- spent most time with cloth mother
- those with wire feeding mother, short time getting milk returned to cloth mother
- developed abnormally, socially abnormal around others
- sexually abnormal - no normal mating behaviour + not cradle own babies
What does Harlow’s study suggest about why an attachment is formed?
Suggests infants do not develop an A to the person who feeds them but to the person offering comfort
What did Harlow reframe our concept of with his research which was originally proposed by the Learning theory?
LT = "Emotional Dependency" terms of physiological basic needs H = A: Social tendencies as primary and that number of inborn behaviour patterns serve to bind child to mother from beginning
What did Harlow’s research show inadequacy in the 1950s?
Medical advice - only physical needs to be met + bonding occurred during feeding
+ Gave valuable pointers to investigate humans
-help understand the devastating effects of human privation = too unethical on humans
L: New approach = greater understanding of A
Other than one mother being cloth-covered or not, what other confounding variable was there between the two mothers?
- heads
- varied systematically w/ IV
- possible infant monkeys preferred one mother due to more attractive head
- likely to lack internal validity
