animal studies of attachment

• Lorenz study on imprinting procedure: Lorenz randomly divided a large clutch of goose eggs. One half were hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz. He then mixed all the goslings together to see whom they would follow
• Lorenz study on imprinting findings and conclusions: The incubator group followed Lorenz, control group followed the mother. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place (few hours after hatching). If imprinting doesn’t occur within that time, chicks didn't attach themselves to a mother figure. Sexual imprinting also occurs whereby the birds acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate
• Harlow study on importance of contact comfort procedure: Harlow reared 16 monkeys with 2 wire model ‘mothers’. Condition 1- milk was dispensed by the plain wire ‘mother’, condition 2- milk was dispensed by the cloth covered ‘mother’. The monkeys’ preferences were measured. To measure the attachment, Harlow observed how the monkeys reacted when placed in frightening situations like making a loud noise
• Harlow study on importance of contact comfort findings and conclusions: Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain-wire mother regardless of which dispensed milk. This suggests that contact comfort was more important than food when it came to attachment behaviour. The monkeys sought comfort from the cloth-covered mother when frightened. As adults, the monkeys who were deprived of their real mothers suffered severe consequences such as being more aggressive, less sociable and less skilled in mating compared to other monkeys
• One strength for imprinting is support. Researchers exposed chicks to simple shape combinations that moved. When shown a range of moving shapes the chicks followed these in preference to other shapes. This suggests that young animals are born with innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object
• One limitation of imprinting is generalising from birds to humans. The mammalian attachment system is quite different from imprinting in birds. For example, mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young. This means that it may not be appropriate to generalise Lorenz’s ideas about imprinting to humans
• One strength of Harlow’s research has real word value. Harlow’s research has helped social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and thus intervene to prevent it. We also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes. This means that Harlow’s research has benefitted animals and humans
• One limitation of Harlow’s research is generalising from monkeys to humans. Monkey’s are clearly more similar to humans than Lorenz’s geese and all mammals share some similarities in their attachment system. However, they are not human and in some ways the human mind and behaviour are much more complex. This means that it may not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans