Animal studies of interaction

Lorenz 1952

• His research suggests that organisms have a biological pre-disposition to form attachments to one single subject

• He conducted an experiment in which goslings were hatched either with their mother or in an incubator

• Once goslings had hatched they were observed - he found that the goslings proceeded to follow the first moving object that they saw between 13 & 16 hours after hatching - for those in an incubator, this is Lorenz

Lorenz findings

• Lorenz’ findings support the view that having a biological basis for an attachment is adaptive as it promotes survival

• He suggests that animals are programmed to to imprint onto the first moving object they see - highlighting the rapid formation of attachment in animals

Harlow 1958

• conducted research with 8 rhesus monkeys which were removed from their mothers a few hours after birth and were caged from infancy

• in their cage, there was both wire mesh food dispensing surrogates and cloth-covered surrogate mothers

• Harlow measured the amount of time that monkeys spent with each surrogate mother and the amount of time that they cried for their biological mother

Harlow findings

• findings revealed that separated infant rhesus monkeys would show attachment behaviours towards a cloth-covered surrogate mother more than the one that gave food

Harlow - further tests

• he decided to scare them to see how they’d react. He created an ugly, scary paper monster to surprise and frighten them

• when the monster appeared, the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for comfort and support

• monkeys are willing to explore a room full of novel toys when the cloth-covered monkey was present but displayed phobic responses when only the food-dispensing surrogate was present

AO3 - strength - practical implications

P = Harlow’s research has profound practical implications, especially implications for childcare

EX = due to the importance of early experiences on long-term development, it is vital that all of children’s needs are catered for; taking care of a child’s physical needs alone is not sufficient

EV = Harlow found that attachment does not develop as the result of being fed by a mother figure but as a result of contact comfort and showed us the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development including the ability to hold down adult relationships and successfully rear children

AO3 - weakness - not generalisable

P = a difficulty with animal studies is that results cannot be generalised to humans

EX = there is a problem in generalising from findings on birds to humans as the mammalian attachment system is quite different in birds and the rhesus monkeys have arguably less complex cognitive and emotional processes than humans do

EV = Lorenz found … and his findings have influenced our understanding of human development

C = however, Harlow’s research was conducted on monkey’s. Green (1994) states that, on a biological level at least, all mammals (including rhesus monkeys) have the same brain structure as humans; the only difference relates to size and number of connections so findings could in fact be generalised to humans

LB = this matters because it shows that we are not able to ignore the differences between animals and humans, and as a result of this, it is inappropriate to generalise the research from animal attachment studies to human behaviour

AO3 - weakness - unethical

P = animals studies into attachment can be criticised for breaking many ethical guidelines

EV = e.g. Harlow’s study can be seen as cruel as the rhesus monkeys were scared by a ‘paper monster’ for the purpose of the research, and were isolated and deprived from social interaction which led the isolated monkeys to develop long-term dysfunctional adult behaviours such as being aggressive, having difficulty mating and being inadequate mothers

EX = could be argued that animals have a right not to be researched, to be raised in a natural setting and to not be harmed and therefore Harlow and Lorenz’s research violated these guidelines

C = however it could be argued that these experiments were justified to study attachment and their research is sufficiently important to justify the violations.

LB = consequently, although the studies were unethical since the animals could not give consent and were not protected from harm, the importance of the research justifies these violations of the ethical guidelines even though the pursuit of academic conclusions for human benefits could be seen as harmful for non-human species