A01 Animal studies of attachment

• Critical period for normal devlopment

  Mother figure had to be introduced to infant within 90 days for an attachment to form. After thus, attachments was impossible and damage done by early deprivation became irreversible
• Effects of mother deprivation

  They were more aggressive and less sociable, bred less due to lack of skill. Those who became mothers neglected their young and sometimes killed them
• Maternally deprived monkeys as adults

  Monkeys deprived of a 'real' mother were followed by Harlow into adulthood to see if maternal deprivation had permanent effects
• Findings of Harlow study

  Baby monkeys cuddled soft objects in preference to the wire one and sought comfort from the cloth when frightened regardless of milk. This showed that 'contact comfort' was more important than food
• Different conditions in Harlow experiment

  In one experiment, 16 baby monkeys were reared with different wire model 'mothers'. One condition was milk dispensed by plain wire mom while second condition was milk dispensed by cloth-covered mother
• Harlow's importance of contact comfort

  Harlow observed Rhesus monkey new-borns die in a bare cage but usually survived if they had a cloth to cuddle. Thus, he tested the idea of soft objects serving the functions of a mother
• Case study

  Lorenz put peacock into a reptile house in a zoo and the first moving objects it saw was giant tortoises. Thus as an adult, the peacock only had a courtship behaviour towards tortoises. The peacock has undergone sexual imprinting
• Sexual imprinitng

  Lorenz investigated relationship between imprinting and adult male preference - birds that imprinted on a human would later display courtship behaviour towards humans
• Critical period

  Lorenz identified a critical period where imprinting takes place and depends on the species how long this takes. If imprinting does not occur, child does not attach to a mother figure
• Imprinting

  Lorenz called this phenomenon imprinting. Ducks/geese attach to the fist moving object they see
• Findings of Lorenz research

  Incubator group followed Lorenz and the control group followed the goose mother. Even when they mixed, the results were the same
• Lorenz as an adult

  He set up a classical experiment and randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs where 1/2 eggs put with mother goose and other 1/2 in an incubator where the first object they would see move is Lorenz
• Lorenz's research

  Observed the phenomenon of imprinting when he was a child and his neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling
• Ethologists

  People who study animal behaviour and in the context of attachment, the relationship between infant animals and their mothers