4. Animal studies of attachment.

• What is imprinting?


  the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life
• What is a critical period for goslings ?

  in lorenz's research he found that it was critical for a gosling to attach to the first living creature they come in contact with to allow proper development
• What happens if an attachment isn't formed during the critical period ?

  then a strong enough attachment cannot be formed and it will have permanent effects on the goslings and it will affect them later in life
• What is sexual imprinting ?

  adult birds try to mate with whatever species or object they imprint on.
• Who developed the idea of imprinting ? when ? how ?

  Lorenz in 1935 did a piece of research on goslings
• What procedure did lorenz use ?

  half the gosling eggs were taken by lorenz and placed in an incubator whilst the other half were hatched normally with the mother
• What were Lorenz's findings ?

  goslings hatched by lorenz followed him around and goslings hatched by the mother followed her around
• How did Lorenz support that half of the goslings had imprinted on him?

  when placed in a room all together with the mother the goslings that imprinted on lorenz continued to follow him
• What do Lorenz's findings suggest ?

  imprinting is a strong biological feature of attachment and evolution
• What are some evaluations on lorenz's research ?

  - lorenz did research on animals which can't necessarily generalise on humans - the mammalian attachment system is different to birds
• Whose research supports but also undermines lorenz's research ?

  - Guiton et al.'s study showed that chickens who had imprinted on yellow rubber gloves showed courtship behaviour towards gloves at first (and tried to mate with them)

  - but then learned to mate with other chickens. this suggests Lorenz overstated the effects of imprinting
• What animals did Harlow conduct research on ?

  rhesus monkeys
• What was Harlow trying to test ?

  the effect of contact comfort in attachment formation with rhesus monkeys
• How long did Harlow study the monkey's for ?

  165 days
• What was the wire mother used for ?

  food
• What was the cloth covered mothere used for ?

  comfort
• What procedure did Harlow use ?

  - half the monkeys were placed in a room with a wire mother who had a milk bottle as well as a cloth covered mother

  - the other half were placed in a room with a wire mother as well as a cloth covered mother with a milk bottle
• How does lorenz's idea of a critical period apply to harlow's research ?

  the critical period for normal development was 90 days, after this period attachment was impossible to form and damage was irreversible like lorenz said about his goslings
• What were Harlow's findings ?

  -baby monkeys cuddled with cloth covered mother over wire mother

  -sought comfort from cloth covered mother when they were scared

  - all the monkeys spent more time with the cloth covered mother weather or not hey had the bottle

  - the monkeys who were fed from the wire mother stayed for a short amount of time before returning to the cloth covered mother
• What were Harlow's conclusions ?

  - that 'contact comfort' was more important than food in forming attachments

  - like lorenz there was also a critical period for these monkeys (90 days)
• What were some of the long lasting effects on monkeys ?

  those who were maternally deprived were

  - social abnormal/antisocial (fled or froze when approached)

  - aggressive (some killed or attacked their children)

  - sexualy abnomal (bred less often as they did not show normal mating behaviours).

  - neglected their young too.