Animal studies of attachment

• Lorenz on imprinting - procedure

  he randomly divided 12 goose eggs, half hatched with the mother and half hatched with him in an incubator - the first moving object this group saw was Lorenz. then he mixed all goslings together to see who they'd follow. he also observed the birds and their later courtship behaviour.
• Lorenz on imprinting - findings

  the incubator group followed Lorenz, the control group followed the mother.
• Lorenz on imprinting - conclusions

  Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to occur. if it did not occur within that time, chicks did not attach themselves to the mother figure. sexual imprinting also occurs whereby the birds acquire a template of the desirable characteristics required in a mate
• Harlow and the importance of contact comfort - procedure


  he reared 16 monkeys with two wire model 'mothers' . in condition 1, milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother. in condition 2, the milk was dispensed by a cloth covered mother. the monkeys' preferences were measured. he also looked at attachment behaviour by frightening them with novelty situations. Harlow also studied these monkeys into their adulthood
• Harlow and the importance of contact comfort - findings


  the soft mother was overall preferred than the wire one, regardless of which dispensed milk. suggests contact comfort is more important than food. monkeys also sought comfort from cloth mother when scared. the monkeys suffered consequences as adults: more aggressive, less sociable, less skilled in mating, of sometimes killed their own offspring.
• limitation of animal studies of attachment - generalising form birds to humans


  the mammalian attachment system is different to that of birds, like how mammalian mothers show more emotional attachment to their young. this means that it cannot be appropriate to generalise ideas like Lorenz's to humans
• limitation of animals studies of attachment - some of Lorenz's observations have been questioned


  Guiton found that chickens who imprinted on yellow washing-up gloves also tried to mate with them as adults. but with experience they learned to mate with their own kind. this study suggests that the effects of imprinting are not as long lasting as Lorenz believed.
• strength of animal studies of attachment - Harlow's research has important practical applications


  it has helped social workers understand the risk factors in child abuse and so they intervene to prevent it (Howe). we also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild. so the usefulness of his research increases its validity
• Another limitation of animal studies is Harlow faced severe criticism for the ethics of his research. 


  Rhesus monkeys are similar enough to humans for us to generalise findings, which also means their suffering was presumably human-like. Harlow himself was aware of the suffering caused. He referred to the wire mothers as 'iron maidens', named after a medieval torture device. The counter-argument is that Harlow's research was sufficiently important to justify the procedures.