Lorenz & Harlow

• Lorenz study


  1935
• Lorenz


  Ethologist who looked at the phenomenon of Imprinting in goslings
• Imprinting

  The idea that some species attach to the first moving object they see when they are born
• Imprinting is often found in most species of birds, particularly ducks and geese
• The idea was that if baby animals can attach after such a short space of time: Literally in seconds, then attachment must be innate
• It is a quality that these animals are born with, posing the question is it innate in humans
• Lorenz's study on imprinting

  1. Took a batch of 12 fertilised geese eggs

  2. Split them into two groups of six

  3. One group (the control group) remained with the mother until they hatched

  4. The second/experimental group was placed into an incubator and Lorenz stayed close when they were due to hatch

  5. He was to be the first moving object they saw
• It was later observed that if you mixed the two groups they would automatically split into their original groups
• The 'Lorenz goslings' were observed to follow him everywhere
• Even as adults the goslings still sought out Lorenz as their 'mother'
• Lorenz's study


  • Supports the idea of a critical period as he found the goslings needed to imprint within 30 hours or an attachment would not be possible
  • This will later support Bowlby's idea of the human infant's critical period of 30 months
  • However, humans are more complex compared to goslings and so attachment is not likely to be such a quick process in humans
  • Human attachment needs to take longer as often the mother cannot be with the baby for several hours, days, or even weeks due to the nature of human childbirth and the impact it has on the health and wellbeing of the mother
  • However, wherever possible the mother is encouraged to hold the infant as soon as possible after giving birth to encourage development to begin
• Evaluation of Lorenz's study

  • High ecological validity as it was a field study
  • Highly reliable and has been repeated both experimentally as well as noted anecdotally
  • Small sample sizes do limit how far we can generalise the results
• Harlow


  Researcher who conducted a study on love in infant monkeys in 1958
• Harlow's study on love in infant monkeys

  1. Baby rhesus monkeys taken from mothers at birth

  2. Placed in cage with two 'surrogate mothers': one made of cloth, one made of wire

  3. Observed time spent with each 'mother'

  4. Monkeys spent most time with cloth mother, only went to wire mother to feed

  5. Frightened monkeys clung to cloth mother

  6. Monkeys used cloth mother as safe space to explore cage
• Findings of Harlow's study

  • Infants needed comfort more than food for attachment
  • Monkeys raised in experiment suffered psychological damage that proved irreparable in adulthood
• Applying Harlow's findings to human infants

  • There will be differences in species, so caution is needed in generalising
  • Some argue monkeys are similar to humans neurologically, so some inference is possible
• Harlow's study disputes learning theory as an explanation and shows importance of primary caregiver role
• Lorenz's work supports the evolutionary explanation, highlighting attachment must be innate (at least in some species)