animal studies of attachment

• imprinting

  an innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place during a specific time in development(first few hours after birth/hatching).If it doesn’t happen at this time it probably will not happen.
• lorenz procedure

  Lorenz took a clutch of gosling eggs.Then divided them into two groups.One group were left with their natural mother and the other group was kept in an incubator.When the incubator eggs hatched the first living thing they saw was Lorenz and soon began to follow him around.To test the effect of imprinting ,Lorenz marked the two groups to distinguish them and placed them together. Both Lorenz and the natural mother were present. 
• lorenz findings

  The incubator group followed Lorenz and the other group followed the mother goose.Lorenz’s group showed no recognition of the mother goose.Lorenz noticed that imprinting occurs at an early critical period and if the animal isn’t presented with a moving object during this time  then the animal will not imprint.Imprinting is a process similar to attachment in which the animal develops a special relationship with a caregiver.Lorenz observed that imprinting to humans doesn’t occur for all species and different species have different lengths of the critical period.
• long lasting effects (lorenz)

  Lorenz suggested that imprinting is irreversible and long lasting.He noticed that imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences and that animals choose to mate with the same kind of object upon which they were imprinted.
• Harlow's procedure

  Harlow created two wire mothers each with a different head.One wire mother additionally was wrapped in soft cloth.8 infant monkeys were studied for 165 days.The wire mother had a food dispenser,the cloth one did not supply food.The time each infant monkey spent with the two different mothers was recorded.Also,their responses to other objects were observed.
• harlows findings

  All 8 monkeys spent most of their time with the cloth covered mother whether or not it has the feeding bottle.The monkeys fed by the wire mother only spent a short time with it to get the milk.When frightened,all monkeys clung on to the cloth covered mother.These findings suggest that infants do not develop attachment to the person who feeds them but to the person offering contact comfort.
• long lasting effects (harlow)

  Harlow continued to study these monkeys and noted the consequences of their early attachment experiences.He found that the motherless monkeys were socially abnormal and neglected their young as adults.Harlow also found that there were critical periods for these effects.If the motherless monkeys spent time with their monkey peers they seemed to recover only if it was before they were 3 months old.
• critical period for Lorenz

  13-16 hours in animals