Animal Studies

• Harlow (1959):

  • 16 rhesus monkeys separated from mothers at birth- put into controlled lab setting with 2 surrogate mothers
  • One was a plain, wire mother, one was a cloth-covered mother
  • Time each monkey spent with each surrogate mother was measured
  • Fear stimulus presented to scare the monkeys- allowed observation of which surrogate mother the monkeys seek comfort from
• Findings from Harlow's study:

  • Monkeys spent around 18 hours with the cloth covered monkey- only moving to the wire mother to get food, then returning to the cloth mother
  • Monkeys sought comfort from the cloth monkey and clung to it when fear stimulus was presented
• Long-lasting effects of Harlow's research:

  • Continued to study monkeys as they grew up
  • Motherless monkeys (grew up with surrogates) developed abnormally
  • Socially- froze/ fled when approached by other monkeys
  • Sexually- abnormal mating behaviour, didn't cradle their own babies
  • If motherless monkeys spent time with their peers, development recovered but only if it was before 3 months old. After 6 months (with only a wire monkey) negative effects were permanent
• Evaluation of Harlow (1959):

  • Low generalisability- flawed comparative method (between animal and human behaviour)
  • High reliability- controlled conditions increase replicability, influences reliability
  • Application- skin-skin contact after birth- helps comfort babies after birth, meaning attachments can be formed between baby and parents
  • Validity- low ecological validity due to unnatural setting=not generalised to other settings. Lower internal validity- confounding variables (monkeys faces)
  • Ethics- unethical, puts animals under stress, interferes with development (long lasting harm)
• Lorenz (1952):

  • Goslings hatched with their mother or in an incubator- when hatched they would follow the first moving object they saw between 13-16 hours after hatching.
  • Goslings hatched in the incubator would follow Lorenz, supporting the idea that a biological basis for attachment is adaptive to promote survival.
  • Goslings imprint quickly due to their increased mobility, while babies are immobile at birth, so they develop an attachment later.
• Long-lasting effects of Lorenz's research:

  • Irreversible imprinting early in life suggests there is a critical period.
  • Longevity of the goslings' bond with Lorenz supports that early attachments influence future bonds.
  • Instinctive bonding (shown by imprinting) suggests that attachments are biologically programmed into a species.
• Evaluation of Lorenz (1952):

  • Low generalisability- use of animals means results cannot be applied to a human context, so low application for humans
  • Application- encourages the idea of skin-skin contact with parents and babies after birth
• Evaluation of animal studies of attachment:

  • May be generalisable to humans- Green (1994) states that all mammals have the same brain structure as humans, so behaviour might be similar
  • Application- guidelines for childcare to ensure a child's needs are taken close care of
  • Low generalisability to humans- animal behaviour might not reflect the emotional connections of humans
  • Unethical- animals cannot consent, also are put into situations which compromise them later in life