Animal Studies

• Lorenz study


  AIM: investigate mechanics of imprinting where some species of animals form an attachment to first moving object they meet

  PROCEDURE: split a large clutch of gosling eggs and divided them into 2 groups

  one group hatched with mother goose and other group were hatched in an incubator

  when incubator eggs hatched, moving thing they saw was Lorenz - started following him around

  to test imprinting, Lorenz mixed all goslings together in a box. when box was removed, goslings' behaviour was recorded.

  RESULTS: incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas control group, followed their mother.

  when groups were mixed up control group continued to follow their mother and incubator group followed Lorenz
• Sexual imprinting


  relationship between imprinting + adult mate preferences

  observed birds that imprinted on a human would later display courtship behaviour towards humans.

  case study - Lorenz described a peacock that'd bene reared in reptile house of a zoo where first moving objects were giant tortoises -> birds only directs courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises
• Harlow study


  AIM: study the mechanics which new-born rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers

  PROCEDURE: Harlow reared 16 rhesus monkeys with 2 wire 'mothers'

  1 condition - milk was dispensed by plain wire 'mother' and not cloth covered 'mother'

  2 condition - milk was dispensed by cloth-covered 'mother'

  monkeys preference for which 'mother' was measured

  Harlow observed how monkeys reacted when placed in frightening situations

  e.g. Harlow added a noisy mechanical teddy bear to environment - continued to study rhesus monkeys and noted many consequences of attachment experiences

  FINDINGS: baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to wire one and sought comfort from cloth one when frightened regardless which dispensed milk

  'contact comfort' was more important for monkeys than food
• Critical period for normal development

  Harlow concluded there was a critical period for this behaviour - mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey within 90days for attachment to form

  after this time, this attachment was impossible and damage done by early deprivation become irreversible
• Maternally deprived monkeys as adults

  Harlow followed monkeys who had been deprived of a 'real' mother in adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.

  monkeys with wired mother were most dysfunctional

  soft toy as a substitute didn't develop normal social behaviour -> more aggressive + less sociable than other monkeys + bred less often than typical for monkeys
• Lorenz - Strength - practical value

  findings have been highly influential within field of developmental psychology

  e.g. fact imprinting is seen to be irreversible suggests attachment formation is under biological control and attachment formation happens within a specific time frame

  Strength - led developmental psychologists to develop well recognised theories of attachment suggesting attachment formation takes place during a critical period and a biological process
• Lorenz - Weakness - generalisability to humans

  although some of his findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there's a problem in generalising

  Weakness - findings on birds to humans as they're physiologically different. way a human infant develops an attachment with their primary caregiver could be very different to way a greylag goose forms an attachment with primary caregiver -> doesn't tell us about biology of human attachments
• Lorenz - Weakness - observations have been questioned

  Guiton et al found chicken imprinted on yellow washing up gloves would try to mate with them as adults.

  however with experience, they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens.

  Weakness - suggests the impacts of imprinting on mating behaviour isn't as permanent as Lorenz believed.
• Harlow - Strength - controlled setting

  Harlow was able to control potential extraneous variables such as monkeys being taken away from their mother straight after birth, baby monkeys not being exposed to any love or attention from biological mothers.

  Strength - Harlow was measuring what he intended to measure therefore study can be seen to have high internal validity allowing a cause and effect relationship to be established

  highly contrlled lab setting that Harlow used isn't reflective of real-life situations and may cause monkeys to behave in an artificial manner.

  Weakness - means Harlow wasn't necessarily measuring the real-life attachment formation therefore study can be criticised for lacking ecological validity
• Harlow - Strength - important practical value

  research into attachment from Harlow's research had important applications in range of practical contexts

  e.g. helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse so intervene to prevent it (Howe)

  findings are also important in care of captive monkeys: now understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and also breeding programmes in wild
• Harlow - Weakness - research is unethical

  e.g. monkeys in Harlow's study showed great distress when they're removed from biological mother

  additionally, after study, when monkeys were placed in situation with other rhesus monkeys, the rhesus monkeys from study showed greater distress in social situations and were unable to communicate with other monkeys

  when monkeys from study had their own children many were said to neglect their offspring and in some extreme cases killed their offspring.

  Weakness - Harlow's study can be seen to be in breach of BPS guidelines