Animal studies

• Peels - Lorenz's Research:

  1. Weakness - results can't be extrapolated - goslings are precocial and humans are altricial

  Resluts can't be generalised
• Peels - Lorenz's Research:

  2. Strength - significant influence on our understanding of attachment - research helped to demonstrate the importance of early attachment on later development

  provides explanatory power
• Peels - Lorenz's Research:

  3. Weakness - opposing researchers have contradicting ideas - Sluckin (1966) proposed the sensitive period.

  loses explanatory power as its a partial explanation
• Sluckin (1966):

  • He replicated Lorenz's study but left 1 duckling in isolation for 5 days
  • He was still able to imprint on the duckling and this became known as the 'sensitive period'
• Peels - Lorenz's Research:

  4) Strength - supported by biological explanations - imprinting is an irreversible process which suggests its under biological control.

  provides empirical evidence as it is supported by other explanations
• Remembering the PEELs - Lorenz's Research:

  1. Results can be extrapolated
  2. Influence our understanding of attachment
  3. Has contradicting research
  4. Supported by biological explanations
• Peels - Harlow's research:

  1. Weakness - results cant be extrapolated - monkeys are precocial and humans are altricial but monkeys are more similar to humans then goslings. Humans are more complex than monkeys and so methodology and results can't be applied to humans.

  loses credibility as it can't be generalised to humans
• Peels - Harlow's research:

  2. Strength - has important real life applications - helps social workers understand the lack of bonding/ comfort may be a risk factor in child development.

  Gains explanatory power
• Peels - Harlow's Research:

  3. Limitation - ethical issues - Harlow's experiments caused long term stress on monkeys and was morally wrong
• Remembering the PEELs - Harlow's research:

  1. Can't be extrapolated
  2. Real life applications
  3. Ethical issues
• What year did Lorenz's animal study take place?

  1952
• Aim of Lorenz (1952):

  To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting where the young goslings follow and form attachments to the first large moving thing they see
• Procedure of Lorenz (1952)

  1. Split a batch of Greylag Goose eggs in half (1 natural born / 1 incubator born)
  2. Recorded their behaviour after they hatched
  3. Lorenz marked all the goslings and placed them under an upturned box
  4. Then recorded their behaviour after the box was lifted
• Results of Lorenz (1952):

  • Natural born goslings followed mum and the incubator goslings followed Lorenz (he was the first large moving thing the saw)
  • Incubator Goslings showed no attachment to mum
  • Goslings imprinted on to humans would attempt to mate with humans when mature (sexual imprinting)
• Conclusion of Lorenz (1952):

  Imprinting is a form of attachment exhibited mainly by nidifugous birds (leave the nest early) whereby close contact is kept with the first large moving thing encountered.
• Critical Period (proposed by Lorenz [1952]):

  The time an attachment/imprinting (precocial animals) must form and if it doesn't, it will never form
• What year did Harlow conduct his study on monkeys?

  1958
• Aim of Harlow (1958):

  To test learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in baby monkeys given a wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a towelling mother producing no milk
• Procedure of Harlow (1958):

  1. 16 baby rhesus monkeys (4 in each condition)
  2. Time spent with each other/ feeding time is recorded
  3. The monkeys were frightened with loud noises to test for preference with stress
  4. A larger cage also tested exploration
• Conditions of Harlow (1958):

  1. Cage with wire mum WITH milk, towelling mum WITHOUT milk
  2. Cage with wire mum WITHOUT milk, towelling WITH milk
  3. Cage with just wire mother WITH milk
  4. Cage with just towelling mother WITH milk
• Results of Harlow (1958):

  • Monkeys preferred Towelling mum regardless of if she produced milk (even stretched to get milk while still with T mum)
  • Monkeys with wire mum showed signs of major stress (diarroeha)
  • With a loud noise, monkeys went to T mum
  • In a larger cage T mum monkeys explored more and came back more often
• Conclusion of Harlow (1958):

  • Rhesus monkeys have an innate need for comfort suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security more than food.

  
  

  • Contact comfort is associated with lower levels of stress and willingness to explore indicating social security
• contact comfort was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
• Maternally deprived monkeys as adults:

  • aggressive
  • less sociable
  • bred less as unskilled at mating
  • IF became a mother - they neglected their babies or became violent with them
• Harlow agreed with Lorenz on the idea of a critical period - after this period the damage done by maternal deprivation was irreversible