Attachment - Animal studies Flashcards
What is imprinting?
- When animals (Such as birds) will strongly attach to the first object (Usually the mother) they encounter
- The infant animal will then follow this object
What was the process of Lorenz’s study?
- Half of a Greylag goose’s eggs were hatched by Lorenz using an incubator and half were hatched by the mother
- The findings showed that the goslings that were hatched by Lorenz followed him and the goslings that hatched naturally were imprinted to the mother and followed her
What was the critical period that was seen in Goslings from Lorenz’s study?
- The critical period for goslings that was seen through Lorenz’s study was 32 hours if a gosling did not see a large moving object to imprint on in these first few hours it will not imprint at all
- This suggests that imprinting is a strong evolutionary/biological feature of attachment in certain birds, and imprinting is with the large object, not other potential cues (E.g: smell/sound)
What is an advantage of animal studies such as Lorenz’s geese and Harlow’s monkeys?
-Lorenz’s and Harlow’s work influenced later researchers such as Bowlby in the development of the idea of a critical period and internal working model in humans
What is a disadvantage of Lorenz’s study with geese?
-Geese are evolutionarily very different to humans, other models such as Harlow’s use of monkeys may be a closer to human psychology
What did Harlow theorise was the drive for the basis of attachment?
- Harlow tested the “Cupboard love” theory which stated that babies love mothers because they feed them
- Harlow suggested the “Contact comfort” theory instead, this is when babies have an innate need for physical contact which becomes the basis of attachment
What was the process for Harlow’s study with monkeys?
- Harlow removed 16 monkeys from their biological mothers and homed them in cages with surrogate mothers
- The monkeys were either put with a wire or cloth mother that provided milk or didn’t provide milk
- Findings:
- Monkeys with cloth mothers always preferred its company, even if the wire mother provided milk
- Monkeys with cloth surrogates demonstrated confidence in dangerous situations, returning to it when frightened
- Monkeys without access to a cloth mother showed signs of stress related illness
- Follow up studies showed that the monkeys who had maternal deprivation developed permanent social disorders (Difficulty in mating behaviour and raising their own offspring)
- This suggests that infants have a biological (Nature) need for physical contact, therefore they will attach to whatever provides comfort
What is a disadvantage of Harlow’s study with monkeys?
- There are ethical concerns regarding the suffering of primates, intentionally orphaning infants and subjecting them to high levels of stress
- This led to a negative view of psychology, however it also led to changes in ethical standards
What is an advantage of Harlow’s study with monkeys?
- Generalising attachment behaviour shown in monkeys to human infants can be seen as problematic
- Although monkeys are similar genetically, there are significant differences in both the biology and cultural/social environments between primates and humans
What is an advantage of Harlow’s study with monkeys?
- Findings from Harlow’s study with monkeys have been applied to early childcare
- For example: Contact between mother and babies in the first few hours after birth and also the findings can be applied to help social service workers investigate cases of infant neglect
- This means that the findings from Harlow’s study with monkeys can benefit millions of human infants
- This may justify the study from a cost benefit analysis regarding the unethicality of harming monkeys versus the practical applications from the findings that can benefit human infants
What is an advantage of animal studies of attachment?
- Bowlby was influenced in the development of his theories of monotropy and deprivation, by Harlow’s work
- This went on to influence Ainsworth
