Animal studies

• Harlow‘s procedure 


  Took 16 baby rheus monkeys from mothers and placed in a cage with two substitute mothers. one covered with cloth and the other made of wire, but had a feeding bottle.

  after a extended amount of time, he released them back with normal monkeys and observed the behavior
• Harlows results

  Monkeys spent 18 hours on cloth mother suggesting they want comfort over food - disproving Cupboard love theory

  Monkeys showed dysfunctional behavior :

  • aggressive to other monkeys
  • unable to form relationships
  • bred less often
  • neglected offspring and killed them in extreme cases
• Harlows conclusions

  • Baby monkeys attached for comfort and not food- inconsistent with cupboard love theory
  • Critical period of 90 days - if attachement is not formed, damage is irreversible
• Lorenz study : Procedure 


  Randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs.

  control Group hached in natural environment

  other half hatched in an incubator and the first moving object that they saw was Lorenz
• Lorenz Study : Results

  Experimental group followed Lorenz and control group followed mother goose even when he mixed the two groups
• Lorenz :Conclusions

  1. Bird species imprint onto the first moving object that they see - too keep them save
  2. Imprinting needs to happen within a critical period - if not, attachment will not for at all
  3. Lorenz found that birds showed courtship behavior towards whatever specie they imprinted on (sexual imprinting)
• Lorenz study Ao3

  Humans vs Birds

  Mammals might attach differently to birds

  Reliability

  Guiton found that chick that sexually imprinted onto gloves, learnt to mate with their species. This suggest that imprinting isn’t permanent
• Harlows study Ao3

  • Value to psychology - shows importance of quality early attachments and importance of them to hold down adult relationships and ability to rear children
  • Application - humans.. help social workers to understand risk factors. Monkeys… help with breeding programs
  • Ethical issues- monkeys suffered due to study, however had great value to psychology
• Ao3 of animal studies

  1. Rapid maturation and quick development cycles - study several generation. This allows us to get quicker results and see effects across generations
  2. Animals can be reared in a controlled environment. This means there as little extraneous variables and high internal validity. As a result we can establish cause and effect
  3. Lorenz and Harlow studies changed how infants are raised. Consents of critical period and imprinting helped establish practices such as skin to skin contact and closeness to encourage development
• Ao3 of animal studies

  • Critical period is reductionistic. Should be replaced by the sensitive period - time where infants are more receptive to opportunities of bonding and learning. A child can recover socially and emotionally if they receive adequate care when they are older
  • Behavioral continuity across species. Darwin assumes basic patterns of behavior are the same in species. this mean Lorenz and Harlow studies can be generalized