animal studies

• Lorenz's research on imprinting - procedure

  randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs.

  half the eggs were hatched with a mother goose in their natural habitat.

  the other half hatched in an incubator and the first object they saw was Lorenz
• Lorenz's research on imprinting - findings

  incubator group followed Lorenz and the control group followed the mother goose.

  when the 2 groups were mixed up, the control continued to follow the mother and the experimental followed Lorenz.

  Lorenz identified a critical period when imprinting needs to take place. Chicks don't attach themselves to a mother figure if imprinting doesn't occur.
• imprinting

  when a bird species that are mobile from birth attach and follow the first moving object they see.
• sexual imprinting

  Lorenz observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often display courtship behaviour to humans.

  Case study - Lorenz

  a peacock had been reared in a reptile house and the first moving object it saw was giant tortoises

  as an adult, the peacock would only direct courtship to giant tortoises.
• strength of Lorenz's research - research support

  research supports the concept of imprinting

  Regolin + Vallortigara

  Chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved e.g. triangle with a rectangle in front.

  range of shape combinations were moved in front of them and they followed the original most closely.

  Supports young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object present during the critical period.
• limitation of Lorenz's research - generalisability

  Cannot generalise findings of birds to humans.

  Mammalian attachment system is much more complex than birds as it is a two way process.

  means Lorenz's research isn't appropriate to generalise to humans.
• Harlow's research on contact comfort - procedure

  Tested the idea that a soft object serves some functions of a mother.

  He reared 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire model 'mothers'

  one condition had milk dispensed by the plain wire mother

  the other condition milk was dispensed from a cloth covered mother.
• Harlow's research - findings

  baby monkeys cuddled the cloth covered mother in preference to the plain wire mother.

  they sought comfort from the cloth when frightened regardless of which mother dispensed milk.

  Showed contact comfort was more important than food for attachment behaviour.
• maternally deprived monkeys

  Harlow followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a 'real' mother into adulthood.

  found that the monkeys with plain wire mothers were most dyfunctional.

  deprived monkeys were more aggressive, less sociable, bred less.

  when they became mothers, they neglected their young and attacked their children - even killing some.
• strength of Harlow's research - real-world value

  Has important real world applications.

  helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience may be a risk factor in development - allows them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes.

  understand importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos.
• limitation of Harlow's research - real-world value

  Monkeys are much more similar to humans than Lorenz's birds and all mammals share similar attachment behaviours.

  But, the human brain and behaviour is much more complex than monkeys.

  so, it is not appropriate to generalise to humans.