3.3 Animal Studies in Attachment

Animal Studies

In psychology these are studies carried out on non-human animal species rather than on humans, either for ethical or practical reasons- practical because animals breed faster and researchers are interested in seeing results across more than one generation if animals.

Imprinting

Imprinting is where an offspring will follow the first moving object they see once born

Lorenz first observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and a neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him around.

Lorenz’s research: Procedure

Lorenz set up a classic experiment in which he randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. Half the eggs were hatched with mother goose in their natural environment. The other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.

Lorenz’s research: Findings

The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her. When the two groups were mixed up, the control group continues to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz.

This is called imprinting. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. Depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after hatching. If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chicks did not attach themselves to a mother figure.

Sexual Imprinting

Lorenz also investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences. He observed that birds that imprinted on human would often later display courtship ( love, romantic ) behaviour toward humans.

The importance of contact comfort

Harlow worked with rhesus monkeys, which are moire similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds.

Harlow observed that newborns kept alone in a bare cage often died but that they usually survived if given something like a cloth to cuddle.

Harlows research: Procedure

Harlow (1958) tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. In one experiment he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain-wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother.

Harlows research: Findings

The baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain-wire mother and sought comfort from the clothe one when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk. This showed that ;contact comfort’ was of way more importance to the monkeys than food when it cam to attachment behaviour.

Maternally deprived monkeys as adults

Harlow et al also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect. The researchers found severe consequences. Th monkeys reared with plain- wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional. However, even those with a cloth- covered mother did not develop normal social behaviour. These deprived monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys and they bred less often than in typical for monkeys, being unskilled at mating. When they became mothers, some neglected their young and attacked their children.

The critical period for normal development

Harlow also conducted that there was a critical period for attachment formation- a mother figure had to be introduced to a young monkey within 90 days for an attachment to form. after this time attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible.

Evaluation of animal studies: Strengths

-A study by Lucia Regolin and Giorgio Vallortigara supports Lorenz’s idea of imprinting. Chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved, a range of shape combinations were then moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely. Supporting the view that animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint.

-Important real world applications. For example, it has helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in child development allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes. We now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild.

Evaluation of animal studies: Limitations

-The mammalian attachment system is quite different and more complex than that in birds. For example, in mammals attachment is a two-way process, so it is not just the young who become attached to their mothers but also the mammalian mothers show emotional attachment to their young. Meaning it’s probably not appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s idea to humans.

-Rhesus monkeys are much more similar to humans than birds and all mammals share sine common attachments behaviours. However, the human brain and human behaviour is still more complex than that of monkeys. So it may also not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans.

-Harlows research caused severe and long-term distress to the monkeys.