Attachment- Animal Studies

Question 1

Key study: Lorenz (1935)

Procedure:

• clutch of gosling eggs 🐣
• divided them in to two groups 🐣 💢 🐣
• one group left with natural mother 🐤
• other group placed in incubator 🔥
• when the eggs hatched… First living thing they saw was Lorenz 👀
• began to follow him around

How would Lorenz test imprinting?

Answer 1

Marked the two goslings Groups to be distinguishable and placed them together and had both himself and the natural mother present

Question 2

Lornez (1935) findings

• Goslings quickly divided themselves up
• one group following natural mother and others following Lorenz

What did Lorenz realise about gosling imprinting period?

What was this period called?

What did observe with curlews?

Answer 2

This process of imprinting is restricted to definite time period of the young animals life.

Critical period

Curlews would not imprint on a human

Question 3

Lornenz-
Long lasting effects food imprinting…
3 features.

Answer 3

1-Irreversible
2-Long-lasting
3-affected later mate preferences (sexual imprinting)

Question 4

Lorenz evaluation:

Research support for imprinting-

Guiton (1966)

Leghorn chicks exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them during their first few weeks = become imprinted on the gloves

What does this show?

What did Guiton find about male chickens and reproductive behaviour?

Answer 4

Young animals born with a predisposition to imprint an any moving thing that is present during the critical window.

Male chickens tried to mate with gloves

Question 5

Evaluation:
Criticisms of imprinting-

Guiton (1966) found that he could reverse imprinting in chickens… After spending time with their own species they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chicken

Answer 5

Imprinting in another kind of learning… Fairly reversible

Question 6

Harlow (1959) - Origins of love (sought to demonstrate mother love is not based on feeding bond)

Procedure

• 2 wire mothers with different heads
• one wire mother was wrapped with soft cloth
• 8 infant rhesus monkeys studies over 165 days
• for four of the monkeys the milk bottle was on the cloth-covered monkey
• milk bottle was the plain wire money for the other four monkeys
• during that time measurement were made of the amount of time each infant spent with the 2 different mothers
• observation were also made of the monkey infants response when frightened

Answer 6

Harlow (1959) - Origins of love (sought to demonstrate mother love is not based on feeding bond)

Procedure

• 2 wire mothers with different heads
• one wire mother was wrapped with soft cloth
• 8 infant rhesus monkeys studies over 165 days
• for four of the monkeys the milk bottle was on the cloth-covered monkey
• milk bottle was the plain wire money for the other four monkeys
• during that time measurement were made of the amount of time each infant spent with the 2 different mothers
• observation were also made of the monkey infants response when frightened

Question 7

Harlow-findings

Which mother did the 8 monkeys spend the most time with?

What would the monkeys who were fed by the wire mother do in regard to feeding?

Which mother did the monkeys go to when frightened?

What would the monkey do with their feet when playing with new objects?

What do the findings suggest?

Answer 7

The cloth covered mother (regardless if they had their feeding bottle 🍼)

Spent short amount of time with wire mother for milk then would return to cloth covered monkey

All monkeys clung to cloth-covered mother

Kept one foot on cloth-covered monkey

Infants develop attachment based on provisions of contact comfort

Question 8

Harlow- long-lasting effects

• monkeys developed abnormally
• social abnormal
• sexually abnormal (did not show normal mating behaviour)
• did not cradle their own behaviour

Harrow also found there to be a critical period… Could recover if they spent time with money peers of this occurred before 3 months old

Answer 8

Having 6 months with only wire mother ms is something they could not recover from

Question 9

Harlow Evaluation-

Confounding variable-

Two stimulus objects varied (two head different on top of cloth or not clothes)

Varied systematically with independent variable

Could be said monkeys preferred cloth mother due to a more attractive head = study lacks internal validity

Answer 9

Harlow Evaluation-

Confounding variable-

Two stimulus objects varied (two head different on top of cloth or not clothes)

Varied systematically with independent variable

Could be said monkeys preferred cloth mother due to a more attractive head = study lacks internal validity

Question 10

Harlow evaluation-generalising animal studies to human behaviour-

Human behaviour differs a lot from animal behaviour- human behaviour is concerned by conscious decisions

However a number of animal attachment behaviour are mirrored studies of humans

But animals studies can act as a useful pointer in understanding human behaviour but we should always seek confirmation by seeking confirmation by looking at research with humans

Answer 10

Harlow evaluation-generalising animal studies to human behaviour-

Human behaviour differs a lot from animal behaviour- human behaviour is concerned by conscious decisions

However a number of animal attachment behaviour are mirrored studies of humans

But animals studies can act as a useful pointer in understanding human behaviour but we should always seek confirmation by seeking confirmation by looking at research with humans