animal studies

• imprinting 


  attachment to the first figure they see during the critical period (one to three years old)
• Lorenz's study(1952)

  he divided a clutch of eggs into two halves, half to hatch with the mother (control group) and the other in an incubator where the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz, the control group followed their mother when the other group followed Lorenz
• Lorenz's study evaluation strengths

  shows that young animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object
• Lorenz's study evaluation limitations

  cant generalise finding from birds to humans as we are unable to conclude that they will behave in the same way, mothers show more emotional reactions to their children and can form attachments beyond the first few hours after birth
• Harlow's study (1958)


  16 monkeys were separated from their mothers immediately after birth and places in cages with access to two surrogate mothers, one made of wire and one made of a towelling cloth - 8 monkeys got milk from the wire mother and 8 from the cloth mother

  results showed that both groups spent more time with the cloth mother (contact comfort) and the monkeys in the second group only went to the wire mother for food

  they also found that monkeys separated at birth were much more timid and aggressive towards other monkeys
• Harlow's study evaluation strengths

  it can be applied to humans as it has an understanding of mother-infant attachment and shows that food is not the primary reinforcer for attachment making the study show quality/comfort is primary for attachment
• Harlow's study evaluation limitations

  ethical issues for the monkeys as they suffered greatly in terms of emotional separation from their mothers at such an early age, this caused psychological distress for them and alter how they act later on in life - showing that humans could have a similar experience if separated at birth