Animal Studies

• who were the two theorists that conducted the animal studies?

  Lorenz & Harlow
• what was Lorenz's procedure?


  divided a clutch of gosling eggs into two groups

  • mother & incubator

  Lorenz made sure that the first thing the goslings saw was him, they started following him around

  to test this effect of imprinting, Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish between then & placed them together
• what was Lorenz's findings?


  the goslings quickly divided themselves up, one groups following the natural mother, the other Lorenz.

  imprinting has a critical period
• what is imprinting?


  an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother
• what year did Lorenz conduct his study?


  1935
• AO3: criticisms of imprinting

  • Hoffman - imprinting is a more 'plastic & forgiving' mechanism
  • Guiton - found that he could reverse imprinting in chickens that tried to mate with the gloves
  • after spending time with their own species, they were able to engage in normal sexual behaviour

  imprinting may not be any different to any other kind of learning. learning can take place rapidly but can be reversible.
• what year did Harlow conduct his research?


  1959
• what was Harlow's procedure?


  • used 8 rhesus monkeys
  • created two wire monkey mothers with different heads and accessories
  • one was more monkey-like & was wrapped in cloth, and the other had an abnormal head & had a milk bottle.
  • he split the monkeys into four, 4 on each 'mother'
  • the measurements were made on the amount of time that was spent on either mother
• what was Harlow's findings?

  • all 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth-covered monkey
  • when frightened, all the monkeys clung onto the cloth covered monkey

  these findings suggested that infants do not develop an attachment to the person that feeds them but to the person that provides them with contact comfort.
• long-lasting effects;

  • monkeys developed abnormally
  • socially abnormal - froze/fled when othe rmonkeys approached them
  • sexually abnormal - did not show normal mating behaviours & did not cradle their babies
  • there is a critical period
  • at 3 months they were able to recover
  • at 6 months they were unable to recover
• AO3: confounding variable

  • the two stimulus object varied in more ways than being cloth-covered or not
  • the different heads could have acted as a confounding variable, which varied systematically with the IV
  • it is possible that the monkeys preferred one mother to the other because the cloth mother had an attractive head

  lacks internal validity
• AO3: generalising animal studies to human behaviour

  • humans differ in important ways, much more of out behaviour is governed by conscious decisions
  • animal attachments behaviours are mirrored in studies of humans
  • Harlow's research is supported by Schaffer & Emerson's study.
  • the infants were not attached to the person that feeds them.