Attachment: topic 4 ‘animal studies into attachment with Lorenz and Harlow’

Question 1

What was Lorenz’s research on imprinting in animal studies?

Answer 1

• aim: to observe the formation of attachment in greylag geese
• method: lorenz divided a number of goose eggs randomly into two groups
• control group: half were replaced under their mother so that the first thing they would see when they hatched was their mother goose
• experimental group: the other half were placed in an incubator and the first thing that they saw w when they hatched was Lorenz
• findings: when the incubator eggs hatched, the first moving thing the experimental group geese saw was Lorenz and they soon started following him around
• to test the effect of imprinting, Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish them and placed them together with himself and the natural mother
• Lorenz found that the goslings quickly divided themselves up, one group following their natural mother and the other group following Lorenz
• Lorenz’s geese showed no recognition of their natural mother as Lorenz became their ‘imprinted parent’
• conclusion: he concluded that animals imprint a mental image of the first moving object they see within hours of being born and therefore the process of attachment must be an instinctive one

Question 2

What was Harlow’s research on rhesus monkeys in animal studies?

Answer 2

• aim: to test the learning theory of attachment (the theory that attachments are formed primarily through food)
• method: 8 baby monkeys were reared with two wire model ‘mothers’
• group 1: plain wire mother which gave milk
• group 2: cloth covered mother which did not give milk
• the monkeys were also frightened to test for mother preference during stress (17-18 hours a day on the cloth mother, monkeys with only a wire mother had diarrhoea caused by stress)
• the amount of time spent with each mother was recorded
• findings: observations of the monkey’s responses were made for 165 days. he found that all 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth covered mother and were often found to ‘reach over’ to the wire mother for food whilst still clinging to the cloth mother and when playing with new objects the monkeys often kept one foot on the cloth covered mother seemingly for reassurance
• conclusion: ‘contact comfort’ was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour. as the monkeys had innate, unlearned need for contact comfort, it suggests that attachment concerns emotional security more than food