Attachment Booklet 3: Animal studies of attachment Flashcards
What did Lorenz first observe?
The phenomenon if imprinting when a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that followed him around
What is imprinting?
Imprinting happens when bird species that are mobile from birth follow the first moving object they see
What was Lorenz’s method?
-Divided a clutch of eggs in two halves
-One half left to hatch with mother
-Other half hatched in incubator, first thing saw was Lorenz
What was Lorenz’s results?
The control group followed their mother goose everywhere whereas the second group followed Lorenz
What did Lorenz do next?
Marked goslings to indicate which groups they hatched from, then let them out together, each gosling went to its mother figure
What were the long lasting effects in Lorenz research?
-Found that there was a relationships between imprinting and adult mate preferences
-Would try to mate with same species they imprinted on
-Lorenz found that a peacock hatched in a reptile house of a zoo and imprinted on a giant tortoise, then tried to copulate with giant tortoises (sexual imprinting)
What did Harlow do?
Carried out perhaps the most important animal research in terms of informing our understanding of attachment
What was the method in Harlows contact comfort study?
-16 monkeys separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one wire one clothe
-Eight could get milk from wire mother, eight could get milk from cloth mother
What was the results in Harlows contact comfort study?
Both groups of monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother, even if with no milk.
What did Harlows study show?
There’s less focus on food but rather a larger focus on contact comfort in attachment
What were the long lasting effects of Harlows study?
-Monkeys who were deprived of a real mother had long lasting effect. Those reared with only a wire mother were the most dysfunctional and those reared with cloth didn’t develop properly.
What are the evaluations of animal studies?
😒Problems generalising animal behaviour to humans
😒Ethical issues in animal research
😊Practical application
😒Evidence to contradict Lorenz (Guiton et al)
😒Confounding variable in Harlows research
