Attachment - animal studies

Question 1

Lorenz (1938)

Answer 1

investigated geese and imprinting.
geese eggs randomly halved, half hatch in incubator seeing him first and half hatched with biological mother
imprinted and followed who they saw first (based on vision)

Question 1

two key researchers of attachment in animals?

Answer 1

Lorenz and Harlow

Question 2

imprinting

Answer 2

infant following mother

Question 3

how many hours before losing ability to imprint

Answer 3

32 hours

Question 4

Harlow (1958)

Answer 4

infant monkeys removed from mothers
- one surrogate provided milk but no comfort and other provided comfort but no food
record time spent with each monkey and which it went to when scared
most time spent with comfort mother, only visit food when hungry
disproves cupboard love theory, infants have an innate need for physical contact

Question 5

cupboard love theory

Answer 5

infants love mothers because they feed them

Question 6

maternal deprivation

Answer 6

lead to difficult in mating and raising infants themselves

Question 7

strengths of animal studies in relation to attachment?

Answer 7

+ Bowlby argued same as Harlow = maternal deprivation lead to poor social ability in adulthood in humans too
+ practical applications in childcare
social services(neglect) and immediate skin-skin contact with mothers and infants
+ Bowlby said humans have critical period too of 6-30 months

Question 8

limitations of animal studies in relation to attachment?

Answer 8

• can’t generalise to humans
• later research suggested period isn’t critical but sensitive
• unethical research
  harmful to animals
  is it worth it for practical applications though?

Question 9

ethology

Answer 9

studying animals in psychology because they have similar behaviour to humans (behaviourist belief)