animal studies of attachment

who did the study of geese and what is his story?

Konrad Lorenz who was an ethologist(someone who studies animals and animal behaviour)

He studied imprinting (what attachment is called in birds) with geese

He first saw this as a child when he was given a duck egg and when the egg hatched the chick imprinted on him and followed him around everywhere

What was Lorenz famous study

He took a handful of goose eggs and divided them in half

He placed half in an incubator and half with the biological mother

He made sure that when the eggs hatched in the incubator that he was the first moving object the geese saw

He also made sure the biological mother was the first thing the other half of geese saw

This then caused the geese to. Imprint on him and follow him around everywhere

How did Lorenz further study the strength of imprinting

Tagged the goslings to show who they had hatched with

Put them all in a pen and place the biological mother one one side and himself on the other

When the pen was opened the geese who hatched with Lorenz went to him first and the geese who hatched with the mother went to her first

What did Lorenz name a specific period

He found that if imprinting doesn’t happen within the first few hours that it didn’t happen at all

He called this the ‘critical period’

He claimed that. It was essential for the developments of birds that they imprint on a n adult

What else did Lorenz discover about imprinting

Birds that imprint on humans would grow up to form sexual mating behaviours with humans too

He also describes a case where a peacock was hatched by giant tortoises and grew up to form sexual mating behaviours with tortoise

What was found in support of Lorenz finding out about sexual mating behaviours

GUITON found that chicks imprinted on yellow gloves as these were the first thing that they had seen

This suggest that some species of chicks will imprint on anything that is moving

What is one issue about Lorenz STUDY

Hard to generalise from goslings to humans

Human attachment system is very different to that in birds

MAMMALIAN system is complex and often 2 way but the birds it is a one way process

Must be careful to generalise

How did Harlow study animal behaviour

Through lab experiments

A lot of of his work included rhesus monkeys

What was the main recognition of his work

Baby monkeys woul hug the towels placed at the bottom of the cages for comfort and those monkeys had a survival benefit by hugging the towels and that those monkeys that did not have towels at the bottom were more likely to die

What is the main importance of Harlows work

Rhesus monkeys are much more like humans than baby geese

What was the method of hallows study’s (there were 2)

Created a cage for the rhesus monkeys

In it he paced 2 wire models of a rhesus monkey mother one model was only made of wire whilst the other was covered in cloth

Harlow had 2 conditions

• the first condition the wire model provided food and the second the cloth model provided food

The babay monkey spent most of their time with the cloth covered monkey and sought comfort when frightened by a noisy mechanical teddy bear only from the cloth covered monkey

In a follow up study what did Harlow find the rhesus monkeys did

They spent up to 22 hours a day on the cloth covered monkey even when it did not provide any food

They only went to te wire model monkey when it needed food and then went straight back to the cloth covered monkey

What does the HARLOW study indicate

Indicates that comfort is more important than food and that it proves the learning theory wrong as that theory suggest that attachment stems from the mothers providing food but in HARLOWS experiment its how the mother cares for the baby and gives comfort.

When Harlow tracked the development of monkeys what did he exactly do and what did he find

He tracked the development of monkeys to adulthood and found differences in those raised by their biological mother and thos raised by a cloth covered monkey and and those raise with no comfort ata ll(WIRE MODEL)

He found that only those raised by their mothers developed normally and the orphan monkeys showed signs of aggression and less sociable

Some of those grew to be bad parents and some killed their children

This shows that a real monkey as a mother is essential to the development of monkeys and that comfort on it s own is not noun to replace a real mother

What was Harlows idea of the critical period for monkeys

Monkeys needed to have a mother monkey introduced to them before 90 days to develop normally

How did Harlows research influence Bowlby

Bowlby described ho crucial it was for human children to have an emotional caring bond in their young childhoods

This wok went on to influence how social workers and psychologists. Gave advice to parents and carers

How has the research for animal attachment influenced other things and what is the issue

Influenced how zoos and breeding programmes look after their newborn and improved the outcomes for thousands of animals

There is a generalisability issue as monkeys although they are similar are not the same as humans

How does Howes research support Harlows research

Reports on the impact that his research had on clinical psychologists and social workers who adopted the need for love and comfort during young childhood to influence their policies on supporting young children