Section 3 : Attachment - Animal Studies of Attachement Flashcards
What was the method of Lorenz (1935)
-Carried out experiment in grey lag geese
-two conditions:
- 1) he was the first thing that the goose chicks saw
- 2) the goose mother was the first thing the goose chicks saw when they hatched
What is imprinting
This is the tendency to form an attachment to the first large moving object seen after birth
What was the results of the first condition
The chicks who saw Lorenz before anything else, followed him like he was their mother.
What was the result of second condition
The chicks which saw their mother first, followed her when they were young.
What did Lorenz find after further experiments
- Lorenz determined that imprinting was most likely between 13 and 16 hours after hatching
- as such he concluded that imprinting seems to occur during a ‘critical period’ fast, automatic process
- after this critical period, it was too late for the young birds ever to imprint
How does this Lorenz’s research link to humans
- it is unlikely to occur in humans
- our attachments take longer to develop and we don’t automatically attach to particular things
- quality care seems more important in human attachment formations
What was the method for Harlow 1959
- Aimed to find out whether baby monkeys would prefer a source of food or a source of comfort and protection as an attachment figure
- In lab experiments rhesus monkeys were raised in isolation
- they had two surrogate mothers
- one was made of wire mesh and contained a feeding bottle
- the other was made of cloth but didn’t contain a feeding bottle
What were the results of Harlow 1959
- The monkeys spent most of their time clinging to the cloth surrogate and only used the wire surrogate to feed
- the cloth surrogate seemed to give them comfort in new situations
- when the monkeys grew up they showed signs of social and emotional disturbance
- the females were bad mothers who were often violent to their offspring
What was the conclusion of Harlow 1959
- Infant monkeys formed more of an attachment with a figure that provided comfort and protection
- Growing up in isolation affected their development
Give the evaluations of Harlow 1959
- Lab experiment, strict control of variable and unlikely results affected by unknown variable
- you can’t generalise the results of this study to human beings (human and monkeys are qualitatively different)
- ethical problems - monkeys out in stressful situation, later showed singes of psychological damage from the experiment. Monkey are social animals unfair to keep them in isolation
- study lacked ecological validity - monkeys weren’t in their natural environment
- Even though it is a lab experiment study can’t be replicated due to ethical guidelines now in place, so you won’t know whether you’d get the same result
What was Harlow’s further research
- Harlow and Zimmerman 1959
- Harlow and Sumoi 1970
What was Harlow and Zimmerman 1959
- added a fearful stimulus
- when a fearful object was placed in the cage, the monkey would cling to the cloth surrogate first before exploring the object
- Monkeys in cages with only a wire surrogate would remain frozen or run wildly around the cage
- the researchers concluded that a strong attachment with a primary caregiver is therefore highly important in the development of an infant
What was Harlow and Sumoi 1970
- investigated other factors in generating a strong attachment
- when they placed a cloth surrogate with food and cloth surrogate without food they found that the one with food was preferred
- they concluded that food may still be a significant factor in developing attachments
Why should findings of animal research be interpreted carefully
Because it is hard to generalise the findings from one species to another because the behaviour of an animal can often be very different to that of a human
Although the results of animal studies might not always be generalisable to human populations…
They can often influence policies and theories in different areas of research
