attachment -> animal studies of attachment Flashcards
What are animal studies?
Studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than humans, either for ethical or practical reasons
What is ethology?
A method where animals are observed in their natural environment
What do animal experiments involve?
Manipulating some independent variable, either in the animal’s environment or the animal itself
What is animal research based on?
Evolutionary theory proposed by Charles Darwin that humans are in fact animals as they are descended from animal ancestors
- humans retain many biological and psychological characteristics from their animal ancestors
Who studied the mechanisms by which newborn rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers?
Harlow (1959)
What was the aim of Harlow’s research?
To demonstrate that attachment is not based on the feeling bond between mother and infant (as predicted by Learning Theory)
What was the procedure of Harlow’s research?
- Harlow conducted research with 16 Rhesus monkeys which were caged since infancy
- removed the monkeys from their biological mothers and placed in cages with surrogate mothers
- One wire mesh food dispensing mother which provided milk but not comfort
- One cloth-covered mother providing comfort but not milk
- Investigated which of the two alternatives would have more attachment behaviours directed towards it
- Time spent with the mother was recorded, as well as which surrogate the infant ran to when frightened by a mechanical monkey
What were the findings of Harlow’s research?
- Separated infant rhesus monkeys would show attachment behaviours towards a cloth-covered surrogate mother when frightened, rather than a food-dispensing surrogate mother
- This showed that ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
- Reviewed infant monkeys that were reared in a social environment and observed that these monkeys went on to develop into healthy adults
What did Harlow find out about maternally deprived monkeys?
The monkeys in isolation with the surrogate mothers all displayed dysfunctional adult behaviour, resulting in permanent social disorders
What dysfunctional social behaviours did maternally deprived monkeys demonstrate?
- Being timid
- Unpredictable with other monkeys
- They had difficulty with mating
- The females were inadequate mothers
What is the significance of isolated monkeys displaying long-term dysfunctional behaviour?
- The fact that isolated monkeys displayed long-term dysfunctional behaviour illustrates that early attachment experiences predict long-term social development
- Despite being fed, isolated monkeys failed to develop functional social behaviour, which would suggest that animals and humans have greater needs than just the provision of food
When is the critical period for normal development in monkeys?
- If a mother figure was introduced to an infant monkey within 90 days then attachment was possible
- after the 90 days, the attachment was impossible and the damage was permanent
What does Harlow’s research suggest?
- That Rhesus monkeys have a biological need for physical contact and will attach to whatever provides comfort rather than love, providing evidence against the cupboard love theory
- Food is not as crucial as comfort when forming a bond
What is the cupboard love theory?
That babies love their mothers because they feed them
Evaluation: Real world value -> strength
- Harlow’s research has profound implications for childcare
- Due to the importance of early experiences on long-term development it is vital that all children’s needs are catered for
- taking care of a child’s physical needs alone is not enough
- Helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in a child’s development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes (Howe 1998)
- We now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild
- This means the value of Harlow’s research is not just theoretical but practical
Evaluation: Generalisability -> limitation
- One limitation is that results cannot be generalised to humans
- Humans and animals have very different biology, and humans have various social and cultural experiences that inform their behaviour
- Rhesus monkeys are much more similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds however the human brain and human behaviour is still more complex than that of monkeys
- It is questionable whether findings and conclusions from monkeys can be extrapolated and applied to complex human behaviours
- It is unlikely that observations of rhesus monkeys reflect emotional connections and interactions in human attachments
- Therefore, the differences between humans and animals outweighs the similarities meaning that animal studies should not be used as the overall explanation for human behaviour
What was the aim of Lorenz’s study?
To examine the phenomenon of imprinting in non-human animals where the offspring follow and form an attachment with the first large moving object that they meet
Who did animal studies to investigate imprinting?
Lorenz (1935)
What is imprinting?
Process whereby species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first large moving object they see
What is the procedure or Lorenz’s study?
- Lorenz split a cluster of goose eggs into two batches:
- naturally hatched by the mother (the control group)
- hatched in an incubator (the experimental group)
- Lorenz made sure he was the first large moving object the newly hatched goslings encountered
- He then recorded the following behaviour of either the mother goose or Lorenz
- Lorenz then marked the goslings as either naturally hatched or incubated and placed them under an upturned box
- The box was the removed and their following behaviour was recorded again
What were the findings of Lorenz’s study?
- The goslings who Lorenz had attached imprinted on him, following him rather than the Mother Goose
- The goslings hatched in a natural environment, imprinted on the Mother Goose and followed her
What did Lorenz find out about the critical period in geese?
Lorenz also found that imprinting would occur within the first few hours after birth (approximately 4-25 hours), which he terms the critical period and was permanent
When did Lorenz investigate the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences?
Lorenz (1952)
What is the conclusion of Lorenz’s research?
Lorenz’s research suggests imprinting is a strong biological feature of attachment in certain birds and imprinting is with the first large object visually seen, not other potential cues
What did Lorenz find when investigating sexual imprinting?
Found that goslings that imprinted onto humans would attempt to mate with humans as adult birds (sexual imprinting)
Evaluation: Generalisability to humans -> limitation (Lorenz)
- A limitation of Lorenz’s research is that there is a problem in generalising findings from birds to humans since we are unable to conclude that humans would behave in exactly the same way
- It seems that the mammalian attachment system is quite different from that in birds
- For example, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their offspring than do birds, and mammals may be able to form an attachment at any time.
- Therefore, whilst some of Lorenz’s findings have greatly influenced our understanding of development and attachment formation, it is not appropriate to try to generalise any of his ideas to humans without caution
Evaluation: Research support -> strength (Lorenz)
- Existence of support for the concept of imprinting
- A study by Regolin and Vallortigara (1995) supports Lorenz’s model of imprinting
- Chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved, such as triangle with a rectangle in front
- A range of shape combinations were moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely
- This supports the view that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present in a critical window of development, as predicted by Lorenz
Evaluation: Some of Lorenz’s observations have been questioned -> limitation
- Doubt has been cast onto some of Lorenz’s conclusions
- For example, Guiton et.al (1966) found that chickens would imprint on yellow washing up gloves if that was the first large moving object they saw after birth, and in turn, would then try to mate with that object in adulthood.
- However, Guiton et.al found that with experience, they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens, suggesting Lorenz’s predictions that this relationship persists and is irreversible is inaccurate.
