Attachment - animal studies Flashcards
What is ethology?
Studying animals in their natural environment.
What is an animal experiment?
Studying animals in a controlled setting with an IV.
What was Lorenz experiment on imprinting?
Lorenz split a large clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches. One batch hatch naturally with the mother, the other batch hatched in an incubator with Lorenz making sure that he was the first moving object the Goslings encountered.
He placed all the goslings under an upturned box. The box was then removed and the goslings behaviour was recorded.
What were the findings of Lorenz study into imprinting?
After birth, the naturally hatched baby goslings followed their mother about whilst the incubator hatched goslings follow Lorenz around.
When were released from the upturned box the naturally hatched geese went straight to their mother whereas the incubator hatched case went straight to Lorenz.
Lorenz noticed how the process of imprinting occurred only a short period of time after birth (between 4 and 25 hours – critical period)
What was the conclusion of Lorenz study into imprinting?
He found that certain animals had an innate tendency to respond immediately to specific forms of stimuli.
Imprinting is a form of attachment whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving object encountered.
These bonds proved to be irreversible.
What was Harlow study on baby rhesus monkeys?
Constructed to surrogate mothers one harsh ‘wire mother’ and one soft ‘towelling mother.
A sample of 16 baby rhesus monkeys were used across the conditions:
1. ‘ wire mother’ dispensing milk and “towelling mother’ with no milk.
2. ‘ wire mother’ With no milk and ‘towelling mother’ dispensing milk.
3. ‘ wire mother’ dispensing milk.
4. ‘ towelling mother’ dispensing milk.
The amount of time the baby monkeys spent with each other was recorded alongside how long they spent feeding.
To test for mother preference, the monkeys were started with a loud noise and their response was recorded.
A larger cage was used in some condition in order to observe the degree of exploration by the rhesus monkeys.
What were Harlow’s findings?
Even though the infants receive nourishment from the wire mother, they still spent more time cuddling and being affectionate with the cloth mother showing bond is not purely physiological.
Furthermore, infant who grew up with the cloth mother exhibited emotional attachment and what is considered as normal behaviour when presented with stressful variables.
With the wire mother, they acted differently and they were very distressed.
What was the conclusion of Harlow study into baby monkeys?
Monkeys have an innate unlearned need for contact comfort suggesting that attachments concern emotional security more than food which contrast against learning theory contact is associated with lower levels of stress and willingness to explore indicating emotional security.
There is a critical period for attachment to develop high concluded that this was 90 days. After this time the damage from maternal deprivation was done and attachment is no longer possible.
what is a strength of the theory of imprinting?
It is a reliable finding as many animal studies have found that animals attached the first object they see after birth - Guiton demonstrated showing that imprinting is linked to reproductive behaviour - this is strength because it increases the reliability of Lorenz findings as they both found that animals attached the first moving object unmade with the same species in addition research suggested chickens with experience start to prefer mating with other chickens - therefore this supports the view that young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type of object but probably on any moving thing.
What is a limitation of the findings of Lorenz on imprinting?
The issue of animal extrapolation - his research findings were based on the studies of birds is findings have been very influential to our understanding of human development. There is a problem generalising to humans as the brains are qualitatively different - research suggest that Mamma Mia attachment is quite different to birds mammals tend to show more emotional attachment than birds also mammals conform attachment at any time - therefore the issue of animal extrapolation reduces the generalisability of the findings as there is a considerable difference between birds and humans in their natural attachment behaviour.
What is a strength of research into attachment theory?
It has good real life application to social care settings - social workers can better understand the risk factors in child abuse and neglect and understand the detrimental effects of maternal deprivation. Findings have also helped improve the treatment of captive animals as we can see the importance of having attachment figures in captivity and breeding programs - research has therefore significantly shaped influential policies therefore it may be argued that the benefits of the research of outweigh the unethical costs of Harlows monkey research - the research would not be permitted today but it has long lasting influence in the real world.
