Attachment - Animal Studies Flashcards
Why do we use animals in research?
- Ethics: it’s less damaging to deprive animals as they are less aware.
- Practical: we can have greater control over animals and observe lifetimes
What is Harlows monkey experiment? APFC
Aim: to test the learning theory of attachment by investigating whether monkeys choose comfort or food.
Procedure: conducted a laboratory experiment where he separated eight baby monkeys from their real mothers and raised them in a laboratory with a surrogate wire mother and a surrogate towel mother for four monkeys the wire mother provided milk and for the other for the towel mother provided milk.
Findings: The monkeys always choose the comforting towel mother over the wire mother even when the wire provided milk.
Conclusions: therefore Harlow study does not support the learning theory of attachment which suggest that attachments are driven by food instead of his study. Suggest that attachments are driven by comfort.
What is Lorenz study?
Procedure: The control group was left to hatch normally in the presence of the mother goose, the way the geese are normally born.
The experimental group was hatched in an incubator, away from their mother. Lorenz made sure to be the first thing these baby geese saw when they hatched.
Findings: baby geese form attachments immediately after birth suggesting that the attachment is biologically pre determined. This attachment isn’t necessarily formed with the mother, the baby geese form an attachment to the first thing they see when they’re born.
What is imprinting?
An attachment made immediately to the first thing an infant sees (person or object), suggesting that their attachment was biologically pre-programmed.
