Attachment - animal studies of attachment Flashcards

1
Q

What is ethology?

A

Studying animals in their natural environment

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2
Q

What is an animal experiment?

A

Studying animals in a controlled environment with an IV

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3
Q

What does Darwin state about using animals to study human behaviour?

A

Humans are descendants from animal ancestors so findings from animal experiments can be extrapolated to humans - learn more about our behaviour

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4
Q

Why are rhesus monkeys often used as animal subjects?

A

Share 95% of their DNA with humans and seen to experience almost ‘human like’ emotion amongst animals

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5
Q

Lorenz (1935): What is imprinting?

A

Form of attachment - close contact kept with the first large moving object encountered

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6
Q

Lorenz (1935): What was the procedure?

A
  • Randomly divided clutch of greylag geese eggs: one hatched naturally with mother and one in incubator with Lorenz
  • Placed all goslings under box, removed box and recorded who they went to
  • He lengthened time in which geese saw the first moving object to see how long the critical period was
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7
Q

Lorenz (1935): What were the findings?

A
  • Naturally-hatched went to mother goose and incubator-hatched went to Lorenz showing no link to biological mother at all
  • Imprinting had to occur within 25 hours or geese wouldn’t imprint at all (critical period)
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8
Q

Lorenz (1935): What was the conclusion?

A

Geese have an innate tendency to imprint and these bonds were irreversible

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9
Q

Lorenz (1935): What does his work inform us about human attachment?

A

Inspired Bowlby - he argued there’s an innate pre-programming for humans to stay close to primary caregivers
Lorenz’s work also supports critical period and monotropy concepts

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10
Q

Harlow (1958): What was the procedure?

A

He constructed 2 surrogate mothers (wire/cloth mother)
- 16 baby rhesus monkeys across different conditions: wire moth w/ milk and cloth mother w/o milk
- Recorded time spent with each mother (DV)
- Tested mother preference in times of distress (loud noise)

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11
Q

Harlow (1958): What were the findings?

A
  • Spent more time cuddling with cloth mother than wire despite not providing food - purely physiological bond
  • Babies raised with cloth mother had emotional attachment and normal behaviour in stressful situation but those raised with wire struggled to calm down and rocked back and forth
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12
Q

Harlow (1958): What did he find about maternal deprivation?

A

-‘Rape rack’ used to artificially inseminate isolated mothers when they refused to mate
- Isolated mothers killed their infants

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13
Q

Harlow (1958): What was the conclusion?

A
  • Rhesus monkeys have an innate need for contact comfort as attachment concerns emotional security more than food, contradicting learning theory
  • Critical period was 90 days and after this maternal deprivation occured, causing irreversible damage
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14
Q

Harlow (1958): What does his research inform us about human attachment?

A

Demonstrates importance of emotional bond in human attachments and refutes learning theory as an explanation of attachment

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