Animal studies of attachment

• Imprinting AO3:

  • ✅ Research support - leghorn chicks became imprinted to rubber gloves - supports view that young animals imprint on any moving thing that's present during the critical period
  • ❌ Criticisms of imprinting - it's reversible ( the leghorn chicks were able to mate with peers ) - may not be different to any other learning
• Harlow ( 1959 ) conducted the origins of love experiment.
• Origins of Love

  • 8 monkeys were separated from their mother & placed in cages with two surrogate mothers
  • 4 monkeys received milk from a cloth mother & the other 4 received milk from a wire mother
  • All of the monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother
• what were the effects of privation for Harlow's monkeys?

  • They were more timid & aggresive
  • Difficulty mating
  • Inadequate mothers
• What did Harlow's origins of love show us about attachment?

  Contact comfort is more important than food . Early maternal deprivation leads to emotional damage.
• Origins of love AO3:

  • ❌ Generalising animal studies to human behaviour - more of human behaviour is governed by concious decisions. ✅ The observations made of animal attachment behaviour are mirrored in humans
  • ❌ Confounding variable - cloth mother had a more attractive head - lacks internal validity
  • ❌ Ethics - lasting emotional harm but helps us understand the processes of attachment - cost benefit analysis
• Origins of love AO3:

  • ❌ Problems generalising animal behaviour to human behaviour
  • ❌ Confounding variable
  • ❌ Ethical issues
• Imprinting:

  • Lorenz (1935)
  • Lorenz divided a clutch of gosling eggs, one half was left with their mother, the others saw Lorenz as their first thing
  • When the goslings were mixed, they went straight to their mother figures
  • Critical period - a definite period that imprinting is restricted to
  • Critical period for Lorenzs goslings was 2 days
  • Imprinting - an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother
  • Long lasting effects: irreversible, mate with the same kind of object they were imprinted to