Animal studies of attachment

• Lorenz studied goslings by taking half of the clutch and putting them in an incubator. The incubator goslings followed him around as they had imprinted on him
• Imprinting - animals attach to the first moving thing they see, this effects mating preferences later in life
• One strength of lorenz's study is that the results are repeatable
• One weakness of lorenz's study is that imprinting my be reversible as it is not different from other kinds of learning
• Harlow researched young monkeys attachment to two ' mothers '.

  cloth, which was soft but had no milk, and wire, which was not soft but had milk.

  The monkeys stayed on cloth the most and ran to it for comfort
• Harlows study suggests that infants develop an attachment to whoever gives them contact comfort, not who feeds them.
• One weakness of harlows study is that the faces of the ' mothers ' were different, making a confounding variable
• One weakness of harlows research is that its results may not be generalisable to humans as only animals were used