Animal studies of attachment

• Who studied animals?

  Harlow studied rhesus monkeys, Lorenz studied geese
• Describe how Lorenz studied attachment in animals.

  randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs

  half-hatched in an incubator and the first ‘thing’ they saw was Lorenz

  half-hatched with their mother

  once hatched the two groups were mixed up and Lorenz observed who/what they followed

  he varied the time between birth and seeing a moving object so he could measure the critical period for imprinting
• Outline how Harlow studied attachment using animals.

  in a controlled environment, infant monkeys reared with two mother surrogates

  plain wire mother dispensing food, cloth-covered mother with no food

  time spent with each mother was recorded

  fear conditions : placing scary objects into cage to see how monkey would behave

  long-term effects recorded: sociability, relationship to offspring, etc.