Attachment- Animal Studies

Question 1

Describe Lorenz’s imprinting study

Answer 1

Randomly divided clutch of goose eggs in half.
Half with mother in natural environment with mother, half in incubator where first moving object seen was Lorenz.
Incubator group followed him, control group followed mother.
Still was the case when mixed up.

Question 2

What is imprinting?

Answer 2

Birds attach to first moving object they see.

Question 3

What is the critical period (imprinting)?

Answer 3

Few hours after hatching (30 for geese) imprinting needs to happen to be able to attach to anything.

Question 4

What is sexual imprinting?

Answer 4

First imprint species- courtship behaviour towards that species.

Question 5

Describe Harlow’s monkeys study

Answer 5

Contact comfort- newborn monkeys alone died, but ones with cloth to cuddle usually survived.
Soft object serves function of mother.
Rewired 16 monkeys with “wire mother” and “cloth mother”.
Wire-gave milk
Cloth-gave nothing
Preferred comfort from cloth mother.
Showed that contact comfort more important than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
Critical period-90 days.

Question 6

What are 2 strengths of animal studies of attachment?

Answer 6

Harlows monkeys close relatives to humans.
E.g. Schaffer and Emerson supports, infants not necessarily attached to person who fed them.
high external validity.

Supporting evidence- sexual imprinting.
Guiton demonstrated that chicks exposed to rubber gloves while bring fed later attempted to mate with them.
High internal validity.