ATTACHMENT Flashcards
What was Lorernz’s aim in his study?
To examine imprinting (offspring forms an attachment tot the first large moving object they see after birth)
How did Lorenz conduct his experiment?
divided two batches of goose eggs, control group was hatched naturally and experimental group was hatched in an incubator, ensuring he was the first large moving object that they saw. He marked the goslings and then put them in an upside down box and it was recorded if they ran to the mother goose or Lorenz.
What was lorenz’s findings in this experiment?
Naturally hatched goslings followed their mother, incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz showing no attachment to biological mother, imprinting occurred within critical period 4-25 hours after hatching, irreversible.
What is an evaluation point for Lorenz? (weakness)
studied non humans so we are unable to generalise the results to humans, attachment in mammals is different to that of the bird species, Lorenz findings have influenced our understanding of attachment we need to be cautious when drawing a wider conclusion.
What is another evaluation point of Lorenz?
Guiton et al said, chickens would imprint on a yellow washing up glove, disagrees that this attachment is irreversible as they learned to prefer mating with other chickens so effects of imprinting arn’t as permanent as originally thought.
How did Harlow conduct his experiment?
made 2 surrogate mothers (wire mother) (towelling mother) and used baby resus monkeys in four caged conditions, 1 -WM dispending milk, TM with no milk 2 - WM with no milk, TM dispensing milk 3 - WM dispensing milk 4 - TM dispensing milk. to test for mother preferences babies were startled by a loud noise.
What was Harlows aim?
examine the extent that contact comfort and food influences attachment behaviour in a baby.
What were the results found by Harlow?
Babies preferred contact with the TM, when given a larger cage babies with TM explored more indicating emotional security.
What were the conclusions drawn by Harlow?
Resus monkeys have an innate drive to seek contact comfort from their parent, attachment is formed from an emotional need for security rather than food, contrasting the learning theory, TM - higher willingness to explore, lower levels of stress.
What is one evaluation point for Harlow? (strength)
large practical value, aids social workers understandings of neglect cases, real life application
What is another evaluation point for Harlow? (weakness)
criticized for ethics on baby monkeys, suffered emotional separation from their biological mother, if they are considered human like they will have experienced the same psychological harm as a human baby would have experienced.l
What is the learning theory?
explanation for attachment. explains how they become attached via classical or operative conditioning (form an attachment to whoever feeds them).
What is classical conditioning in relation to the learning theory?
associating 2 stimuli together to condition a learned response
1-food is unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response is relief from hunger.
2-caregiver is neutral stimulus, no conditioned response form child.
3-associated caregiver (neutral) who gives food with food (unconditioned stimulus)
4-caregiver becomes conditioned stimulus associated with relief of hunger (takes repetition)
What is operate conditioning in relation to the learning theory?
skinner studied this, behaviour could be learned through consequences rewarded-repeated, punished-stops. infant cries for comfort when comforted this is positive reinforcement, parent receives negative reinforcement when crying stops.
What are some evaluation points of the learning theory? (criticism)
by Harlow, baby monkeys spent more time with TM which provided more food, these monkeys dont form attachments based on presence of food going against the learning theory, further supported by Schaffer and Emerson demonstrated infants formed attachments to mothers despite being fed by other carers.
