Animal studies

Why are animal studies favourable when carrying out research into attachment?

-Ethical reasons
-Practical reasons (animals breed faster and researchers are often interested in seeing results across many generations of animals)
-Attachment behaviour is often common to a range of species

What is a disadvantage of carrying out animal studies?

-Unethical, can cause long term psychological distress / physical harm to animals

What was the procedure of Lorenz's 1935 gosling study?

-He randomly divided a clutch of eggs in half
-One half was left to hatch with the mother (the control group), the other half were hatched in an incubator, and the first moving thing these goslings saw was Lorenz
-He measured who they followed once they hatched
-Marked the goslings to indicate which group of eggs they were from, then let them out together all at once to measure who they went to

Findings of Lorenz's study?

The control group followed their mother everywhere, whereas the incubated group followed Lorenz

Conclusions of Lorenz's study?

-Attachment and bond-forming is more due to nature than nurture
-Came up with theory of imprinting
-Also came up with idea of a critical period for imprinting to occur
-Sexual imprinting was also discovered

Imprinting definition?

Bird species that are mobile from birth (e.g geese and ducks) attach to + follow the first moving object they see

Critical period definition?

-The time period within which imprinting has to take place for chicks to attach themselves to a mother figure (within just a few hours)
-If imprinting does not occur within the critical period the chicks will never attach themselves to a mother figure

Sexual imprinting definition?

Birds tend to only perform courtship behaviour towards the same species as the one they imprinted on (e.g peacocks displaying mating behaviour towards giant turtles)

What (in terms of survival instinct) supports the idea that offspring are likely to get attached as part of their nature?

Likely to provide food, comfort + safety; inbuilt mechanism to survive (innate)

Strengths of Lorenz's research?

-Existence of research support for imprinting (Regolin + Vallortigara)
-High reliability

Weaknesses of Lorenz's research?

-Lack of generalisability to humans
-Unethical (taking offspring away from their mothers at a young age

What was the procedure of Harlow's 1958 rhesus monkey study?

-16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and placed in cages with access to two 'surrogate mothers', one made of wire, and one covered in soft towelling cloth
-The wire mother dispensed milk, the cloth one did not (in most scenarios)
-Frightening objects were sometimes placed in the cages
-Harlow measured how long the monkeys spent on each model

Findings of Harlow's study?

-The baby monkey spent more time (up to 20 hrs a day) with the cloth mother, even if she had no milk
-They would only go to the wire mother when hungry
-If a frightening object was placed in the cage the infant took refuge with the cloth mother
-The infant would explore more when the cloth mother was present
-Monkeys who had grown up with surrogate mothers grew up to be more timid, aggressive, having difficulty with mating, killing their offspring (inadequate parency)

Conclusions of Harlow's study?

-Concluded that contact comfort was more important than food in the formation of attachment
-However it is not sufficient for healthy development
-Also concluded that early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage
-Impact of this damage could be reversed if an attachment was made before the end of the critical period (90 days) (if no attachment made after critical period ended, no amount of exposure to mothers or peer could alter the emotional damage that had already occurred)

Strengths of Harlow's research?

-Real world applications (social workers + clinical psychologists)- not just theoretical but also practical

Weaknesses of Harlow's research?

-Unethical (suffering to monkeys)
-Difficult to generalise (human brains more complex than monkeys)