Lesson 4: Animal studies of Attachment

Question 1

Harlow (1959) procedure

Answer 1

• created 2 wire mothers (one exposed, one wrapped in soft cloth)
• 8 rhesus monkeys seperated from mothers at birth
• Studied for 165 days, the time monkeys spent with each mother was measured
• Observations made of responses to being frightened by mechanical teddy bear, and how they would cope with exploring a new room of unfamiliar toys

Question 2

Harlow (1959) findings

Answer 2

• All 8 spent most of time with soft cloth mother, even if it was not the one feeding them
• Monkeys fed by exposed mother only stayed to get milk then returned to soft cloth
• When frightened by teddy, they clung to soft cloth mother
• When playing with new objects, kept one foot on soft cloth mother
• Did not explore new environment unless with soft cloth mother

Question 3

Long term effects Harlow (1959)

Answer 3

• Developed abnormally, froze or fled when approached by other monkeys
• Did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cradle their own babies
• Could recover if they spent more time with other monkeys before 3 months with wire mother
• 3+ months with wire mother was not something they could recover from

Question 4

Positives of Harlow (1959) study

Answer 4

• Has implications for theories of attachment. Harlows suggestion that comfort/sensitive responsiveness is more important than food contradicts learning theory.
• Highlights the implications of early neglect and long-term consequences of poor attachment in childhood for future relationships. This fits with Bowlbys maternal deprivation theory. However, in humans this may be more of a sensitive period as studies have demonstrated how children have been unable to recover from early deprivation.
• Schaffer and Emerson (1964) also found that food is not necessary for attachment to form. They discovered that babies are often attached to people who play with them, rather than people who feed them. In 39% of cases even though the mother was the one who fed the baby the baby was more attached to someone else.

Question 5

Negative of Harlow (1959) study

Answer 5

This study may be considered unethical. The monkeys were removed from their mothers, which may have been very traumatic, and they were deliberately scared to see how they would react. This let to long-term emotional harm, when these monkeys were older and encountered other monkeys they either froze or fled. They also had difficulty caring for their own young babies (did not cradle them) as they had not been cared for themselves.

Question 6

Lorenz (1939) procedure

Answer 6

He wanted to investigate imprinting- the instinct in several species of animals to attach to the first moving thing they see after they are born.

Lorenz took a clutch of gosling eggs and divided them into two groups. One group was left to hatch with their natural mother present, while the other eggs were placed in an incubator. When the eggs in the incubator hatched the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz. Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish between them and placed them all together again.

Question 7

Lorenz findings

Answer 7

• The goslings quickly divided themselves up, one group following their natural mother and the other (incubator group) following Lorenz.
• The Goslings that had been in the incubator showed no recognition of their natural mother.
• Lorenz found that this process of imprinting is restricted to a very definite period of a young animals life, called a critical period.
• If a young animal is not exposed to a moving object during this early critical period then the animal will not imprint.
• Animals imprint on consistently moving objects during their first two days.

Question 8

Lorenz long term effects

Answer 8

• Notes several features of imprinting, for example the process is irreversible and long lasting.
• One of the geese imprinted on him used to sleep on his bed every night.
• Lorenz also discovered that this early imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences, called sexual imprinting.
• Animals (especially birds) will choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.

Question 9

Positives of Lorenz (1935)

Answer 9

• Imprinting is similar to the idea of a critical period in Bowlbys maternal deprivation theory. In both cases there is a ‘window of opportunity’ in which attachments must be formed otherwise there will be long term negative consequences.
• Gutton (1966) study supports the idea that animals are born with an instinct to attach to the first moving object they see since his study demonstrated that chickens exposed to a yellow rubber glove during feeding in their first few weeks imprinted on the gloves.

Question 10

Negatives of Lorenz (1935)

Answer 10

• Imprinting is more reversible than Lorenz thought. Gutton (1966) found he could reverse the imprinting on chickens that had initially tried to mate with the yellow rubber gloves. After spending some time with their own species they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens.
• Problematic to extrapolate the findings from animal studies to attachment in human infants since it is not necessarily transferrable information. Humans are very different physiologically from monkeys/geese who don’t have culture, society, peers etc. Furthermore, humans have several different types of attachment styles.