Attachment - Animal Studies Flashcards
What are animal studies?
- Animal studies on attachment look at the formation of early bonds between non-human parents and their offspring
- This interests psychologists as this attachment-like behaviour is common to a range of species and animal studies can help us understand human attachment
- Imprinting is an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother, which takes place during a specific time at the time of development / critical period (usually a few hours after birth) - it is irreversible and long lasting, and if it does not occur within the critical period it does not happen at all
- Sexual imprinting is the idea that imprinting affects adult mate preferences - animals will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they imprinted
Key word - Ethology / Ethologist
Comparative study of the behaviour of non-human animals, typically in their natural habitat
Key word - imprinting
A type of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and independent of the consequences of behaviour. An irreversible and long-lasting process.
Key word - sexual imprinting
The development of a preference for a sexual partner that occurs during the sensitive or critical period, usually influenced by the animal imprinted on.
Implications of animal studies on humans
- Babies do not imprint instantly like birds, but the same concepts and importance of attachment holds true
- John Bowlby developed a theory of attachment in humans (2 years) with the lack of an attachment being formed in this critical period then the child will suffer irreversible developmental consequences e.g. reduced intelligence and increased aggression
Lorenz’s Study (1937) - Aims and Procedure
Aim -
- To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object they see
Procedure -
- Split a batch of greylag goose eggs in half, one of which was hatched naturally and the other was hatched in an incubator
- Lorenz ensured that he was the first moving object the incubated group saw, and that the natural mother was the first the other half saw
- Lorenz then marked all the goslings to determine whether or not they were naturally hatched or incubated and placed them in an upturned box to mix them, and then he removed the box and observed the behaviour
Lorenz’s Study (1937) - Findings and Conclusion
Findings -
- Immediately after birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about, whilst the incubated followed Lorenz
- When released from the box, the naturally hatched geese went to their mother, and the others went to Lorenz, showing no bond to their actual mother - these bonds were irreversible and the naturally hatched goslings only followed their mother and the incubated goslings only followed Lorenz
- He noted that imprinting only occurred within a brief, set time period of between 4-25 hours after hatching
He therefore recorded and reported how goslings imprinted onto humans and how as matured adults they only mated with humans
Conclusions -
- Imprinting is an important foundation of attachment, exhibited mainly by nidifugous birds (leave nest early) whereby cose contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered
Lorenz’s Study (1937) - Evaluations
Strengths -
- Research has found that that chickens exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them during the first few weeks became imprinted on the gloves and would try to mate with them as adults
- Suggests that what Lorenz conducted is reliable and has ecological validity in other bird species has some relevancy to attachment in humans
Undermining evidence -
- The same research did however find that with experience, the chickens eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens
- This suggests that imprinting is not entirely irreversible as Lorenz suggested, and that sexual imprinting is more malleable than attachment imprinting
Weakness -
- Lorenz was interested in bird imprinting and although some of his findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there are generalisation issues as the mammalian attachment system seems to be different than that in birds as mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds do and mammals could form attachment at any time
- This suggests there is some relevancy of findings but lacks external validity
- Does provide good investigative framework for more mammal specific studies to help us understand human attachment however
Harlow’s Study (1959) - Procedure
What he was studying -
- If a soft object served the same functions as the mother
Procedure -
- Reared infant rhesus monkeys and studied them for 165 days
- For half of the monkeys, the milk bottle was on the cloth covered ‘mother’ and in both conditions there were two ‘mothers’ a wire and a clothed one
- During this time, measurements were made of the amount go time each infant spent with the two mothers and observations were also made of the responses of the infant monkeys when frightened by, for example, a mechanical teddy bear
Harlow’s Study (1959) - Findings
Findings -
- Infant monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the wire one, with all the monkeys spending most of their time with the cloth mother whether or not they had the bottle and these monkeys fed from the wire mother only spent a short amount of time getting milk and then returning to the cloth mother
- They all sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened, clinging to ‘her’ regardless of which mother gave food, and when playing with new objects, they obtained reassurance from the cloth covered mother with one foot
Harlow’s Study (1959) - Conclusions
- Suggests that infants do not develop attachment to the person who feeds them and provides basic needs, but to the person offering contact comfort, and so contact comfort is more important than food in attachment behavior for mammals
- Like Lorenz, Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for this behavior - a mother figure had to be introduced to the infant monkey within 90 days to form attachment, and after this time attachment was impossible and the damage done became irreversible
- Attachment is irreversible, affects social development and is long lasting, requiring a critical period for attachment to a mother figure
Harlow’s Study (1959) - Long-lasting effects
- He continued his study of the monkeys deprived of a mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect
- He found that the motherless monkeys, even with contact comfort, developed abnormally
- They were socially abnormal (froze or fled when approached by other monkeys, were more aggressive, less sociable) and sexually abnormal (showing atypical mating behavior, mating less and were unskilled at mating)
- Some of the deprived monkeys also neglected their young, and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases
Harlow’s Study (1959) - Evaluation
Strengths -
- More relevant to human attachment as both species are mammals and attach similarly as a result
- Harlow’s findings have had a massive impact on understanding of human-mother infant attachment, showing that attachment doesn’t develop through feeding but instead contact comfort; Harlow also showed the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development, including the ability to hold down adult relationships and rear children successfully
- Harlow’s research has external validity and has contributed to psychotherapy for children - The insight into attachment from the research has had important applications in numerous contexts, such as understanding risk factors in child neglect and abuse and so intervene to prevent it
- The research is also important for the care of captive monkeys, helping us understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and in breeding programs in the wild
- External validity, applicable, still relevant, reliable
Harlow’s study (1959) - Evaluation 2
Weaknesses:
- The study is criticized for its ethical issues as the monkeys suffered greatly as a result of the procedures; as the animals are quite similar to humans, the suffering is presumably similar, and Harlow was aware of the suffering he caused
- There are ethical issues that don’t challenge or effect results, but effect the ability to reproduce the study and confirm reliability alongside the validity of his findings - the study design is a major weakness that does not match current scientific procedure - The two ‘mothers’ differed in other ways, other than being cloth covered or not. The two heads were different (cloth mother had a face) and so this acts as a confounding variable
- The lack of control suggests there may be parts of the study design which could have created the response other than the hypothesized independent variables, affecting the conclusion of the study
