Animal studies

• imprinting is a process that occurs in animals. It’s similar to attachment in that it binds a young animal to a caregiver in a special relationship
• Lorenz (1935) aimed to investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where goslings follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet
• Lorenz randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs: half hatched with the mother in their natural environment and the other half hatched in an incubator where Lorenz was the first moving object they saw. After they hatched, the following behaviour of each group of gosling was recorded
• Lorenz also marked each group of goslings so they could be distinguished and placed all of them under a box. When the box was removed, their following behaviour was recorded again
• The naturally hatched goslings always followed their mother and the incubator hatched goslings always followed Lorenz. The bonds formed during imprinting appeared to be irreversible, as shown when the two groups were mixed and placed under a box, they continued to follow their original attachment figure. The experimental group of goslings showed no recognition for their natural parent
• Imprinting occurred within a given time frame, between 4 and 25 hours after hatching. Lorenz called this the ‘critical period’
• Lorenz concluded that if a young bird doesn’t imprint within the critical period they won’t attach to a mother figure at all
• Harlow (1958) aimed to investigate the basis of attachment in animals, specifically rhesus monkeys
• Harlow wanted to understand whether learning theory could adequately explain attachments
• Harlow raised 8 infant rhesus monkeys in isolation and were provided with two mother substitute, one was made of bare wire and provided food and the other was covered in cloth and didn’t provide food
• Harlows study went on for 165 days and he measured the amount of time spent clinging to each of the surrogate mothers and the amount of time the infants spent crying when either mother was removed from the cage. In addition they were scared by a mechanical teddy and their responses to this was recorded which tested their mother preference during times of stress
• All the infant monkeys spent the majority of their time on the cloth mother, despite the mother not offering food. For those monkeys who had to feed from the wire mother, the monkeys would quickly return to the cloth mother
• Most monkeys showed signs of distress when the comforting mother was removed from the cage. when scared by the teddy, the baby monkeys clung to the cloth mother for comfort
• Harlow concluded that these findings suggests that infant monkeys don’t develop an attachment to the individual that feeds them, but to the individual who offers contact comfort. This need for contact comfort is innate and unlearned, suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food
• Harlow continued to study these infant monkeys as they grew up, and observed many consequences of their early attachment experiences
• As the rhesus monkeys matured they all displayed abnormal behaviour. They were socially abnormal as they froze or fled when approached by other monkeys. They were also more aggressive than monkeys who had formed normal attachments
• The rhesus monkeys were also sexually abnormal and didn’t show normal mating behaviour and didn’t cradle their own babies
• The results for Harlows study suggests that attachments are important for development
• Guiton (1966) studied leghorn chicks and found that they imprinted on the yellow rubber gloves which were worn during feeding as this was the first large moving object they saw
• after the chicks had attached to the rubber gloves, Guiton later found the chicks tried to mate with them. However, when Guiton allowed the chicks to spend time with other members of the same species, they showed normal sexual behaviour towards them
• Harlow showed that the quality of early relationships affects our ability to develop health relationships in adulthood. This includes our ability to rear children, as our expectations about parenthood are shaped by early attachments. the monkeys who didn’t form appropriate attachments appeared unable to effectively parent and care for their offspring
• Harlow only studied rhesus monkeys, which although arguably similar to humans, may differ in terms of key characteristics, like the ability to make conscious decisions