Animal Stufies Of Attachment Flashcards
Animal studies in attachment
important insights into human behaviour using animal studies
Who were the two psychologists involved in animal studies
- Lorenz
- Harlow
Imprinting
mobile bird species attach to and follow the first
moving object they see.
Critical imprinting
the first few hours of birth.
Sexual imprinting
peacock imprinted on a tortoise.
Lorenz’s research procedure
Divided a clutch of goose eggs – half were hatched with the
mother whilst the other half were put in an incubator with the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz
Lorenz’s research participants
Geese
Lorenz’s research results
Incubator group followed Lorenz whereas the control group followed the mother goose.
Lorenz’s research conclusions
Imprinting occurred! However if imprinting did not occur in the key period, the chicks did not form an attachment to a mother figure.
Lorenz’s Animal study of attachment evaluation points- Research support
STRENGTH
Regolin and Vallortigara observed chicks imprint on moving shapes
Lorenz’s Animal study of attachment evaluation points- Generalisability to humans
LIMITATION
Attachment systems birds are less complex and not two-way
Contact comfort
Survival occurred if baby monkeys were
given something soft like a cloth to cuddle.
Harlow’s research procedure
- 16 baby monkeys were each
- Put in a cage with 2 ‘wire mothers’.
- One was bare, and the other covered in cloth.
- In one condition the wire monkey gave milk, in the second, the cloth one did.
Harlow’s research participants
Rhesus monkey
Harlow’s research results
Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth mother even in the condition when the wire one gave milk.
Maternal Deprivation also occurred with monkeys
traumatised, violent, aggressive and struggling to form
attachments.
