Animal studies of attachment

• what is imprinting?

  • where the offspring follows and forms an attachment bond to the first large moving object they see after birth
  • this is a type of very rapid learning which is irreversible
• why was early research into attachment often conducted on non-human animals?

  • on the basis that they was/is biological similarity, therefore if something was observed in animal attachment behaviour, it stands to reason that it could also be applied/generalise to humans
  • seen as more ethical - less rigid ethical guidelines
  • practical advantages - they breed faster so results can be seen over a life span and across generations
• what was the aim and procedures of Lorenz's study?

  • to examine the phenomenon of imprinting in non-human animals
  • randomly divided greylag goose eggs into two batches - one group was the control group (was hatched naturally with mother) and other group was the experimental group (placed in an incubator with Lorenz making sure he was the first large moving object they saw
  • behaviour of both groups was recorded
  • Lorenz marked goslings, so he knew which conditions they were hatched in and placed them in an upside-down box - box was removed and their behaviour was recorded again
• what were the results of Lorenz's study?

  • found that straight after birth the naturally hatched goslings followed their mother goose, whereas the incubator hatched goslings followed Lorenz
  • when he mixed up the goslings the same results were seen - the goslings showed to attachment to their biological mother
  • Lorenz noted that imprinting only occurred within a critical period of 4-25 hours after hatching, this relationship persisted over time and proved to be irreversible
• what were the conclusions of the Lorenz study?

  These results suggest that imprinting is a form of attachment that is exhibited by birds that are mobile from birth that attach to or imprint onto the first large moving object they encounter after birth
• what was the procedure of Harlow's study?

  • Harlow constructed two surrogate mothers - one harsh 'wire mother' and the second wire mother was wrapped in a towel material 'cloth mother'
  • 16 rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth and placed with the two surrogate mothers
  • one condition - 8 monkeys, milk was dispensed from wire monkey
  • second condition - other 8 monkeys, milk was dispensed from cloth mother
  • recorded how long each monkey spent with each mother - also is periods of stress, a loud noise was made and responses recorded
• what was the aim of Harlow's study?

  to examine the extent to which contact comfort and food influences attachment behaviour in rhesus monkeys
• what were the results of Harlow's study?

  • found baby monkeys spent majority of the time each day cuddling cloth mother, regardless of whether this mother had the milk in or not
  • they would even stretch across to wire mother for food whilst still clinging to the cloth mother suggesting contact comfort was more important than food when it came to attachment behaviour
  • when frightened - monkeys sought comfort from cloth mother
  • as monkeys grew up they have been maternally deprived, causing them to be more aggressive, less sociable, less skilled at mating and even killed their offspring
• what were the conclusions of Harlow's study?

  • monkeys have an innate drive to seek contact comfort from their parent suggesting that attachment is formed through an emotional need for security rather than food (in contrast to learning theory)
  • this contact comfort provided by mothers is associated by a higher willingness to explore their surroundings and lower levels of stress
  • like Lorenz, Harlow concluded there was a critical period for attachment formation - a mother figure had to be introduced within 90 days from birth for an attachment to form - after this damage was irreversible
• what implications/RWA do animal studies into attachment have?

  • Lorenz gives support to explanations of attachment in humans - e.g. Bowlby suggested ability to attach was innate as it serves an adaptive function, without a baby attaching to an adult it would die as there would be no-one to provide for it, Bowlby drew on Lorenz's idea of critical period, but its 2 hours in humans rather than a few hours, showing how influential Lorenz's work is
• why is the ecological validity of Lorenz's research a weakness?

  • difficult to generalise from animal research to explain human attachments
  • humans are far more complex than goslings, don't grow as fast and it could be argued that what Lorenz found was a simplified version of what might occur in human attachments
  • we cannot generalise the results to humans since we are unable to conclude that they would behave in exactly the same way
• why is some supportive and alternative research for Lorenz's study?

  • later research has cast doubt onto some of Lorenz's conclusion - Guiton et al (1966) found that chickens would imprint on yellow washing up gloves if that was the largest moving object they saw after birth
  • he also found they would try to make with the object in adulthood
  • however, Guiton et al disagreed with Lorenz's predictions that this is irreversible since the chickens could eventually learn to prefer mating with other chickens instead, suggesting that the effects of imprinting may not be as permanent as initially thought
• what are the real world applications of Harlow's (1958) study?

  • results provided insight into attachment formation
  • Howe (1998) reports that the knowledge gained from Harlow's research has helped social workers understand risk factors in neglect and abuse cases with human children and can serve to prevent it happening or recognise when to intervene
  • practical applications - used in the care of captive wild monkeys in zoos or breeding programmes to ensure they have adequate attachment figures as part of their care
• what is supportive evidence and implications of Harlow's (1958) study?

  • supports Bowlby's theories of human attachment
  • Bowlby argued that is a child did not form an attachment with their mother, they would suffer the negative consequences of maternal deprivation, such as affectionless psychopathy
  • this included being more aggressive, cold and callous as a person, which links to the impact maternal deprivation had on the monkeys in Harlow's research
• what is the external/ecological validity of the Harlow (1958) study?

  • difficult to make generalisations from research with monkeys (beyond study conditions)
  • whilst it could be argued that we are similar to monkeys than goslings, there are still many differences
• what are the negative implications/ ethical issues of the Harlow (1958) study?

  • separated monkeys from their real mothers at birth, purposely frightened them to see how they would react
  • this led to some of the monkeys killing their own offspring and becoming very aggressive
  • after conducting cost benefit analysis, many argue that the ends do not justify the means and that such research should not take place
  • others argue that the insight obtained was sufficiently important to psychologists' understanding of attachment that Harlow was justified in his approach