Evaluation

• animal studies are not generalisable to humans

  The mammalian attachment system seems to be quite different from that in birds e.g. mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds do, and mammals may be able to form attachments at any time (although less easily than during infancy). so therefore we cant generalise to humans
• research on imprinting

  Research has found that chickens exposed to yellow rubber gloves for feeding them during the first few weeks became imprinted on the gloves and would try to mate with them as adults. This supports the idea that young animals imprint on any moving thing that is present during the critical window of development and so suggests that his results have some external validity to other birds.
• is imprinting permenant

  The same research found that with experience, the chickens eventually learned to prefer mating with other chickens.

   This suggests that the impact of imprinting on mating behaviour is not as permanent or irreversible as Lorenz believed.
• impact on understanding of mother-infant attachment

  Harlow showed that attachment doesn’t develop as a result of being fed by a mother figure, but as a result of contact comfort. Harlow also showed us the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development. shows that breast feeding isn’t important to creating attachment figures because contact comfort is more important. This is a reassuring piece of evidence for fathers that don’t feed the baby.
• real world application

  it has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse, and so intervene to prevent it. The research is also important for the care of captive monkeys – we now understand the importance of proper attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos, and in breeding programmes in the wild. which is a strength of the study because it has helped social workers and practical settings
• ethical issues

  The monkeys suffered greatly as a result of the procedures. As the animals are quite similar to humans, the suffering is presumably quite human-like. Harlow himself was aware of the suffering he caused. The psychological harm that the monkeys faced gives us an insight to the type of developmental harm a child would experience when deprived from their mother.

   

  However, the long lasting effects on the monkeys is simply unethical
• control over conditions in animal studies.

  This means that there is a good methodology which gives the study internal validity making it reliable. there are also no demand characteristics when studying animals which is usually a big problem for human studies.

  We cannot study deprivation on humans because it would be too unethical so Harlow’s study gives us an insight to attachment that can rarely be achieved through studying humans.
• confounding variable that wasn't controlled

  The two ‘mothers’ differed in other ways, other than being cloth-covered or not. The two heads were very different and so act as a confounding variable. Issue with the methodology

   

  Extraneous variable means we can’t know for sure whether the monkeys were more attached because of the contact comfort or because the cloth mother had more of a face

  Therefore lacks internal validity
• generalisablity

  The ultimate aim of animal studies is to be able to generalise the conclusions to human behaviour. Although it is helped what we now know about human attachment without having to test on humans, the generalisability from animals to humans Is still a weakness because of the complexities of the human attachment system. Harlow’s study gives us an idea of the mammalian attachment but is still too simple to really outline the way humans act.