animal studies of attachment

Who are the two researchers who used animal studies?

Lorenz

Harlow

What was Lorenz’s aim?

• to investigate the mechanisms of imprinting - where a bird species mobile from birth follow and form an attachment with the first moving object they see

What was Lorenz’s procedure?

• split a clutch of greylag geese into two batches

• One naturally hatched by the mother

• One in an incubator with Lorenz as the first moving object they saw

• He recorded their behaviour

• He also marked the goslings and placed them under an upturned box, then removed it and recorded their behaviour

What were Lorenz’s findings?

• the incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group followed their mother

• When the two groups were mixed up, the incubator group continued to follow Lorenz and the control group followed their mother

• There was a critical period between 4-25 hours and if imprinting did not occur the chicks did not attach to a mother figure

• Lorenz reported that the goslings that imprinted on humans later attempted to mate with humans

What was Harlow’s aim?

• to determine whether food or close comfort was the important factor in attachment

What was Harlow’s procedure?

• placed 16 rhesus monkeys in cages with two surrogate mothers, a harsh wire mother or a soft towelling mother

• 4/16 monkeys were used in each of the conditions

• The amount of time spend with each mother was recorded as well as feeding time

• The monkeys were frightened with a loud noise to test for mother preference during stress

• A large cage was also used to test the degree of exploration

What were Harlow’s four conditions?

1. Wire mother producing milk, towel mother no milk

2. Wire mother no milk, towel mother producing milk

3. Wire mother producing milk

4. Towel mother producing milk

What were Harlow’s findings?

• monkeys preferred contact with the towel mother when given the choice, regardless of whether she produced milk. Some even stretched over across to the wire mother to feed whilst clinging to the towel mother

• Monkeys with only the wire mother showed signs of stress

• When frightened monkeys clung to the towelling mother

• In larger cage conditions, monkeys with towelling mothers explored more and visited the mother more often

What were the monkeys like later in adulthood due to the research?

• severe consequences

• Some were aggressive, less sociable, bred less often as were unskilled at mating

• As mothers, some of them neglected their young and others attacked or killed them

What are the three evaluation points of animal studies?

1 - ❌ problems with generalisability - Lorenz - Green

2 - ✅ usefulness of the research - Lorenz - Bowlby - Harlow

3 - ❌✅ ethics vs significance to human

Evaluation point 1 - problems with generalisability ❌

P - one issue with using animal research is the question of whether we can generalise the findings onto human infants

E - it may be less appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s findings as the attachment system of birds is much less complex and involves less emotion than that of mammals

E - Harlow’s monkeys however, are more similar to humans than geese; Green states that, on a biological level at least, all mammals have the same brain structure as humans; the only differences relates to size and the number of connections making it easier to generalise

L - however, neither sample are human and so it is argues that we cannot generalise Harlow’s or Lorenz’s research to human attachments

Evaluation point 2 - usefulness of the research to humans ✅

P - despite the arguments of whether we can generalise animal research to humans the findings have still been useful to understanding human attachment

E - Lorenz’s idea of a critical period greatly influenced Bowlby’s research and led to the idea that human infants need to attach by the age of 2 or there would be serious long-term consequences

E - similarly, Harlow’s research showed us the consequences of early neglect in children and the potential long-term consequences of poor attachment in childhood for future relationships, again influencing Bowlby’s internal working model

L - so regardless of being able to fully generalise animal studies the findings have been of huge significance to understanding human attachment and how to improve and strengthen it

Evaluation point 3 - Ethics vs significance to humans ❌

P - the use of animal research can be questioned on ethical grounds

E - it could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched on/harmed and the pursuit of academic conclusions for human benefits could be seen as detrimental to non-human species

E - however, the counter-argument is that it would not be possible to carry put this research on human infants and that the findings have had huge significance, for example, helping social workers to identify risk factors in vulnerable children and preventing long term negative consequences

L - this means that we have to think about a cost-benefit analysis to the harm caused to the rhesus monkey’s versus the benefit to human infants and our understanding of human attachment