Animal studies

2 key animal studies

• Lorenz- imprinting

• Harlow- contact comfort and maternal-separation

Lorenz’s study on imprinting

Aim- look into imprinting

Procedure

1. Divided a clutch of eggs into 2: some hatched with their mother (control group) and the rest hatched in an incubator where they saw Lorenz first.

2. Control group followed their mother around as expected, but the 2nd group followed Lorenz around.

3. Even when the 2 groups were mixed, they all went to their ‘mother figure’

Findings

Discovered the critical period (12 hours for a bird) where an attachment must be formed- if not, it may never be formed. Imprinting is irreversible and long-lasting

Additional information (sexual imprinting)

He found that imprinting has an effect on later mating preferences. E.g. he raised a peacock in a reptile house, where it attached to a tortoise-in later life, the peacock showed courtship to the tortoise.

Evaluation of Lorenz’s study on imprinting

• + research support- Regolin et al exposed chicks to simple shape-combinations that move, and the chicks showed preference to the moving shapes (shows animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint)

• + research has informed human attachment- ‘baby duck syndrome’ is where computer uses become attached to their first computer = imprinting is meaningful

• - cannot generalise human behaviour to birds as we have a much more in depth complexity compared to them.

Harlow’s maternal separation

Aim- investigate the importance of contact comfort vs food comfort

Procedure

1. A group of monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth

2. Placed in a cages with two surrogate mothers; a wire mother and a cloth mother.

3. Half the monkeys could get milk from the wire mother and the other half could get it from the cloth mother

Findings

Both groups spent more time with the cloth mother. The infant would only go to the wire mother when it was hungry.

• contact comfort is more important than food comfort

Additional info (maternal deprivation)

Found that monkeys who were maternally deprived were timid, easily bullied and had difficulty mating

(Only found in monkeys who were alone for over 90 days- 90 days is critical period

Evaluation of Harlow’s monkey maternal deprivation study

• + research has informed human attachment- research showed maternal deprivation affect monkeys in adulthood, high is similar to humans (lower IQ and slow emotional development)

• + Practical applications- helps us understand the urgency for helping orphaned/abandoned babies (90 critical period)

• - ethical issues- caused the monkeys long-term distress and made them struggle in adulthood as they didn’t have a primary attachment to a mother