Animal studies

• Attachment

  Two influential researchers: Konrad Lorenz and Harry Harlow
• Konrad Lorenz's work on imprinting


  1. Randomly divided a clutch of grey lag goose eggs

  2. Half hatched naturally with biological mother, half hatched in incubator with Lorenz as first thing goslings saw

  3. Tested limits of imprinting by making goslings wait before seeing any moving object

  4. Goslings imprinted on Lorenz followed him closely, goslings imprinted on mother followed her

  5. Found critical period of around 32 hours for imprinting
• Lorenz's work

  • Provides evidence for biological aspect to attachment behavior in birds
  • Process of imprinting is based on vision
• Harry Harlow's experiment on attachment


  1. Removed infant monkeys from mothers soon after birth

  2. Placed in cage with two surrogate mothers: wire mother with bottle of milk, cloth mother without food but provided comfort

  3. Recorded time monkeys spent with each surrogate mother

  4. Frightened infant monkeys to see which surrogate they would run to
• Harlow's findings

  • Monkeys spent majority of time with cloth mother, not wire mother
  • When frightened, monkeys ran to cloth mother
  • Monkeys suffered maternal deprivation and had long-term problems interacting with other monkeys and raising their own infants - such as aggression, issues with breeding
• Harlow's argument

  Animals like the monkeys have an innate need for physical contact, not just food association
• A03 - HARLOW + LORENZ: not generalisable animals and humans are very different biologically, as human behaviour and brain are more complex. Geese are not mammals so attachment not two-way process.
• A03: research support: John Bowlby


  Researcher who used Lorenz and Harlow's findings to develop theories on human attachment
• AO3: research support - Bowlby's argument


  • Human infants crave comfort from mothers, attempt to form monotropic relationship
  • If this bond fails to develop due to maternal deprivation, humans will have poor social abilities like deprived monkeys
  • Humans have sensitive period for attachment formation, not critical period like goslings
• AO3 - ethics: Harlow's research was unethical, subjected primates to suffering
• AO3- real world application: Harlow's work influenced later researchers like Bowlby, ultimately leading to improved policies around infant care. - allow them to interfere and prevent poor outcomes. Practical application.
• AO3 - research support: Lorenz - Chicks exposed to shape combos that moved. Chicks filled original combos closely. Innate mechanism to imprint.
• Harlow: critical period = 90 days