Attachment - Animal Studies Flashcards
What was the procure Lorenz used in his study
Randomly divided goos eggs
Ha;f eggs hatched with mother goose In natural environment
Other half eggs hatched in an incubator where the first moving subject they see - Lorenz
What were the findings of Lorenz study
Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere
Control group - followed mother goose
When mixed up the same thing happened
This is called imprinting
What imprinting
Whereby bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving subject they see
What did Lorenz identify in terms of critical period
Critical period in which imprinting needs to take place
If imprinting doesn’t occur within this time, chick does not attach to mother figure
What procedure did Harlow use to understand attachment
He reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire mothers.
1 condition - milk dispensed by plain wire mother
2 condition - milk was dispensed by cloth covered mother
Measured how long baby would cling to each mother
Frightened baby monkeys to see which mother they go to for comfort
what did Harlow find
The baby monkeys cuddled the soft ‘mother’ in preference to the wire one, spending most of their day clinging to it. They also sought comfort form the cloth ‘mother’ when frightened, regardless of which mother dispensed milk.
• This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was more important to the monkey than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
Why did Harlow follow the monkeys that had been deprived of a real mother into adulthood
to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect
What did Harlow find after he followed the monkeys Ito adulthood
Dysfunctional and did not develop normal social behaviour
More aggressive, less sociable, bred less
As mothers - neglected their young , attacked their children and even killing them
What did Harlow conclude about critical time period
There was critical time period
mother figure has to be introduced within 90 days for an attachment to form
After this time attachment was impossible
Damage by early deprivation irreversible
What is sexual imprinting
Birds that imprinted on a human would later display courtship behaviour towards humans
What is limiatation of animal studies
There is a problem in generalising from findings on birds to humans
Mammalian attachment if different to attachment found in birds
Mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment
Cannot generalise any of Lorenz ideas to humans
What is a strength of harlows research (theoretical value)
Has high theoretical value
Harlow showed attachment does not develop as result of being fed by a mother figure
Result of contact comfort
Showed importance of quality of early relationships for later social development
Shows findings have profound effect on understanding mother-infant attachment
What is another strength of harlows research ( practical value)
It great amounts of practical value
Helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so intervene to prevent it ( Howe 1998)
Understand importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes
Important applications in a range of contexts
What is a limitation of harlows research (limitation)
Has several ethical issues
Monkeys suffered greatly as a result of procures. They were not protected from harm
Eg wire mothers called iron maidens after medieval torture device
Species is similar enough to humans to generalise finding but suffering was presumably quite human like
CA- harlows research was important to justify effects of maternal deprivation and in understanding attachment disorders
