Attachment - Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
What is imprinting?
When an animal will strongly attach to the first object (usually mother) they encounter.
What was Lorenz’s procedure?
Half of the greylag geese eggs hatched by Lorenz using an incubator, half hatched by mother
What was Lorenz’s findings?
- Goslings hatched by Lorenz followed him and showed no maternal bond to their mother
- Goslings hatched naturally imprinted on mother and followed her
- When goslings were all placed together, the half that had imprinted on Lorenz continued to follow him
What is the critical period of geese to imprint? What does this suggest?
32 hours. If a gosling did not see a large moving object in these first few hours, it would not imprint at all.
This suggests imprinting is a strong evolutionary/biological feature of attachment in certain birds, and imprinting is with the first object, not other potential cues (ie smells/sound)
What is a strength of Lorenz’s study?
Lorenz’s work influenced later researchers such as Bowlby in the development of the idea of a critical period and internal working models in humans.
What is a weakness of Lorenz’s study?
NOT GENERALISABLE
Geese are evolutionarily different to humans, other models such as Harlow’s use of monkeys may be closer to human psychology (more generalisable)
What idea did Harlow’s study test? What did Harlow suggest instead?
Tested ‘Cupboard love’ the ideas that babies love their mother because they feed them.
He suggested instead that ‘contact comfort’ - babies have an innate need for physical contact, this is the basis of attachment.
What was Harlow’s procedure?
16 rhesus monkeys were removed from their biological mothers and placed in cages with surrogate mothers which were a combination of wire/or cloth mothers that either provided milk or did not.
What was Harlow’s findings?
- Monkeys with cloth surrogates demonstrated confidence in novel situations, returning to it when frightened. They always preferred its company, even if the wire mother provided milk.
- Monkeys without access to a cloth mother showed signs of stress related illness.
- Follow up studies on maternal deprivation resulted in permanent social disorders (difficulty in mating behaviour and raising offspring)
What does Harlow’s findings suggest?
Suggests infants have a biological (innate) need for physical contact and will therefore attach to whatever provides comfort
What are the strengths of Harlow’s monkey study?
REAL LIFE APPLICATION
Has been applied to early childcare, e.g contact between mothers and babies in the first few hours after birth, social service workers investigating cases of neglect
JUSTIFIABLE COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Benefits to millions of human infants may justify the study from a cost-benefit viewpoint
What are the weaknesses of Harlow’s study?
ETHICAL CONCERNS
Regarding the suffering of primates. Intentionally subjecting infants to high levels of stress. Led to a negative view of psychology but also changes to ethical standards.
CAN’T BE GENERALISED
Generalising humans is problematic, monkeys are similar genetically, but there are significant differences in both biology/social & cultural environments.
