Discuss research into animal studies of attachment Flashcards
outline harlow
Harlow (1958) studied 16 baby monkeys that were taken from their mothers at birth and reared in isolation.
They were placed in a cage with two mock-mother monkeys – a wire mock mother and a cloth mock mother.
- In one condition, the wire mother dispensed milk to feed the monkeys, in the other, milk was dispensed by the cloth mother.
The time spent with each mother was recorded and behaviour of the monkey was observed as it was deliberately frightened.
Learning theory predicts that the infant monkey would spend most of its time with the wire mother due to the pleasure associated with food.
The study however, found that the monkey would spend the majority of the time with the cloth mother, only going to the wire mother to feed.
This demonstrated the importance of contact comfort as the monkey would go to the cloth mother whenever frightened, regardless of which mother provided food, going against learning theory.
strength of harlow
A strength of Harlow’s study is that it has practical applications, which is when the principles of a study can be put into practise, outside of the laboratory.
This is because the study has helped social workers to understand risk factors in child abuse and therefore intervene to prevent this (Howe, 1998).
It has also highlighted the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild.
This suggests that Harlow’s research is valuable as it benefits society.
limit of harlow
A limitation of Harlow’s research however is that there are problems with generalising the findings from monkeys to humans.
Although monkeys are more similar to humans than Lorenz’s geese, they are not humans.
For example, human babies develop speech-like communication which may influence the formation of attachments.
Therefore, there is disagreement on the extent to which studies of non-human primates can be generalised to humans.
outline lorenz
Lorenz (1952) studied attachments in geese.
- Before hatching, geese eggs were divided into 3 conditions: mother (hatched in presence of natural mother), Lorenz (hatched in presence of Lorenz), and isolation (hatched individually, in isolation).
After hatching, behaviour was observed.
In the mother condition, the group immediately followed and continued to follow their natural mother.
In the Lorenz condition, they immediately followed and continued to follow Lorenz.
In the isolation condition, the group did not follow anyone or anything. This behaviour conditioned even after their natural mother was reintroduced.
After several variations, Lorenz concluded this process only occurred during the first 20 hours after hatching (critical period – time frame during which attachment behaviour is most likely to develop).
He proposed the idea of imprinting – infant birds follow the first animal they see after hatching – which must be innate as it occurs right after hatching.
limit of lorenz
A limitation of Lorenz’s research however is that some more recent research has questioned Lorenz’s conclusions.
For example, Guiton (1966) found chickens imprinted on yellow washing up gloves and tried to mate with them as adults, as Lorenz predicted.
However, with experience they learnt to mate with their own kind.
This study suggests that the effects of imprinting on mating behaviour are not as long lasting as Lorenz believed.
limit lorenz 2
Although some of Lorenz’s findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there is a problem with generalising findings from birds to humans.
The mammalian attachment system is quite different than that in birds.
For example, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachments to their young than birds do.
This means that it is not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas to humans.
