Animal studies of attachment:

• What did Harlow investigate?

  The importance of contact comfort
• What was Harlow's procedure?

  Harry Harlow rearer 16 rhesus monkeys with two wire model 'mothers'

  • Condition 1 - milk was dispensed by the plain-wire 'mother'
  • Condition 2 - milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered 'mother'

  The monkeys' preferences were measured
• How did Harlow measure attachment like behaviour?

  To measure attachment-like behaviour, Harlow observed how the monkeys reacted when placed in frightening situations. For example, Harlow added a noisy mechanical teddy bear to the environment.
• What did Harlow also do?

  Harlow and his colleagues also continued to study the monkeys who had been deprived of their 'real' mother into adulthood.
• What were Harlow's findings?

  • Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain-wire mother regardless of which dispensed milk. This suggests that contact comfort was of more importance than food when it came to attachment behaviour
  • The monkeys sought comfort from the cloth-covered mother when frightened
• What were Harlow's conclusions?

  As adults, the monkeys who had been deprived of their real mothers suffered severe consequences - they were more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled in mating than other monkeys.
• What did Lorenz (1952) investigate?

  Imprinting
• What was Lorenz's procedure?

  Konrad Lorenz randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs:

  • One half were hatched with the mother goose in their natural habitat/environment
  • The other half were hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
  • Lorenz then mixed all the goslings together to see who they would follow
• What were Lorenz's findings?

  • Incubator group followed Lorenz, control group followed the mother
  • Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place, e.g. a few hours after hatching
  • If imprinting did not occur within that time, chicks did not attach themselves to the mother figure
• What did Lorenz also conclude?

  That sexual imprinting also occurs whereby the birds acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate.
• What is a strength of Harlow's research/study?

  P - Harlow's research has real-world value

  E - It has helped social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and thus intervene to prevent it (Howe 1998)

  E - We also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes

  L - This means that Harlow's research has benefitted both animals and humans
• What is a limitation of Harlow's research?

  P - A limitation is generalising from monkeys to humans

  E - Monkeys are clearly more similar to humans than Lorenz's geese, and all mammals share some similarities in their attachment systems

  E - However they are not human and in some ways the human mind and behaviour are much more complex.

  L - This means that it may not be appropriate to generalise Harlow's findings to humans
• What is a strength of imprinting?

  P - A strength is that there is support for the concept of imprinting

  E - Regolin and Vallortigara (1995) exposed chicks to simple shape - combinations that moved

  E - When shown a range of moving shapes the chicks followed these in preference to other shapes

  L - This may suggest that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object.
• What is a limitation for Lorenz's study/research?

  P - One limitation is generalising from birds to humans

  E - The mammalian attachment system is quite different from imprinting in birds

  E - For example, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young

  L - This means that it may not be appropriate to generalise Lorenz's ideas about imprinting to humans