animal studies in attachment

• Ethology


  The study of non-human animals in order to learn more about humans
• Zoology


  The study of animals in order to understand the animal itself
• We can use a study of ethology to ask what we can learn about our own species by considering it
• Lorenz (1952) - Imprinting in goslings


  • Ensured he was the first living adult that the experimental group of newborn goslings were exposed to
  • Experimental group followed Lorenz around even when in the presence of their actual goose mother
  • There is a critical period in which animate beings attach to another being - if this period is lost then attachment may never happen
• Harlow (1958) - Contact comfort in infant monkeys


  • Baby monkeys deprived of food preferred a cloth 'mother' (made of wire mesh with a soft covering) to a milk-dispensing 'mother'
  • Monkeys subsequently went on to show signs of maternal deprivation as they had been reared without any real contact with an adult monkey e.g. they were anti-social, aggressive and had no social behaviours
  • If the monkeys experienced their first 90 days of life without real adult contact then they deprivation-related damage was done
• Imprinting


  The idea that some species attach to the first moving object they see when they are born
• Lorenz's study on imprinting

  1. Took a batch of 12 fertilised geese eggs and split them into two groups of six

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

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

  4. He was to be the first moving object they saw

  5. It was later observed that if you mixed the two groups they would automatically split into their original groups

  6. The 'Lorenz goslings' were observed to follow him everywhere

  7. Even as adults the goslings still sought out Lorenz as their 'mother'
• Harlow's study on love in infant monkeys

  1. Baby rhesus monkeys were taken from their mothers as soon as they were born

  2. They were then placed in a cage with two 'surrogate mothers': One made of comfortable, terry cloth and one made of wire

  3. The wire mother had a bottle of milk inside of it so the monkey could feed on her

  4. The monkeys tended to spend most of their time with the cloth mother, only going to the wire mother to feed

  5. If the baby monkey was frightened it would immediately cling to the cloth mother for support

  6. They also used the cloth mother as a safe space to explore the cage
• Critical period


  Period in which animate beings attach to another being - if this period is lost then attachment may never happen
• Monkeys reared without adult contact

  • Anti-social
  • Aggressive
  • No social behaviours
• Lorenz (1952) - we cannot generalise these findings to human beings
• This research does support Bowlby's suggestion that a critical period is the vital window in which attachment must happen in humans
• Harlow (1958) - there are ethical issues with this study due to the high levels of distress experienced by the monkeys
• Harlow's (1958) findings have real-world applications regarding the ways in which children in care (and animals in captivity) are treated
• Lorenz does support 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
• 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
• Wherever possible the mother is encouraged to hold the infant as soon as possible after giving birth to encourage development to begin
• The 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
• The study has been incredibly influential in how we saw infant-caregiver relationships
• The monkeys raised in that experiment suffered psychological damage from being without an adequate primary caregiver that proved to be irreparable in adulthood
• The experiment highlighted the need for a 'responsive' caregiver
• The experiment is highly unethical as it caused immense psychological harm to the infant monkeys, that could never be repaired
• There are questions about validity: Is this really attachment? Attachment is complex, linked to a range of emotions and biological needs: Was Harlow really seeing 'love' for a cloth mother in this experiment
• The experiment is not reliable as it can never, nor should be, repeated
• How much can we apply this to human infants? There will clearly be differences in species and it would be wrong to generalise to human infants without more evidence
• Some would argue that monkeys are similar to humans in that we have similar neurological structures, therefore some inference is possible
• The implications of both studies are important, especially Harlow: He disputes learning theory as an explanation and really shows the importance of the PCG role
• Lorenz also support the evolutionary explanation as it highlights attachment must be innate (at least in some species- so why not humans?)