animal studies

• Harlow- Rhesus Macaques sample taken from birth and raised by 2 surrogate mothers, one made of wire one made of cloth, found that regardless of which mother provided food (milk) the macaques spent more time with cloth mother, suggesting that monkeys attach for comfort not food, also found that the monkeys showed psychological problems such as abnormal sexual behaviour later in life which supports Bowlby's theory of a critical period
• Lorenz- took a clutch of Grelay Goose eggs and divided them into 2 groups- left with mother or left in an incubator, to check they had imprinted, he used markers to indicate each group and stored them in a container when they were released, he measured whether the goslings would follow himself (lorenz) or the mother, they quickly separated and the ones who were from the mother followed her and the other group (incubator) followed him, They imprinted on the first object they saw and before feeding! suggests imprinting is innate and not to do with food, imprinting was strongest between 13 and 16 hours, after this the effects reduced suggesting a critical period!- supporting bowlby
• Harlow evaluation- more ethical to work on monkeys than humans and has led to a greater understanding of love and comfort in attachment. however monkeys showed abnormal and distressed behaviour which raises ethical questions on animal research.
• another limitation of harlows research is that the monkeys faces were different to eachother which could have been a confounding variable
• drawback of lorenz- humans are much more complex in attachment compared to birds, therefore we must be careful when extrapolating results,
• lorenz- high control of extraneous variables therefore easy replication process