animal studies

• why do psychologists study animals?


  • no demand characterstics
  • quick to analyse growth
  • helps to understand human attachment
  • similarities between humans and animals
• Lorenz (1952): imprinting

  • randomly divided goose eggs into two groups, a control and experiment group.

  the control group hatched with the mother goose in a natural environment and the experimental group hatched in an incubator where Lorenz was the first moving object

  • completed experiment again where a peacock imprinted on a tortoise at birth and showed signs of courtship towards tortoises - sexual imprint
• Lorenz results:

  • experimental group followed Lorenz everywhere, control group followed mother
  • when the groups were mixed, they followed their correct caregiver

  concluding that humans have a critical period where they create attachments with people - so do animals, otherwise they struggle to form attachments with anything
• imprinting: where someone forms an attachment with the first thing that they see
• Lorenz evaluation:

  strength:

  • Bowlby; suggested that animals and humans both have critical periods where they form attachments

  weakness

  • ungeneralisable to humans as animal attachments are different to human attachments
• Harlow (1958): separated monkeys from their months and kept them in cages

  • eight monkeys studied with a wire 'mother' and a cloth 'mother'

  condition 1: milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother

  condition 2: no milk was dispensed by the cloth covered mother
• Harlow findings:

  • monkey would spend more time on the cloth covered mother - increased when it became frightened by mechanical toy
  • monkeys more willing to explore a room with toys when cloth covered mother was present

  concluding: love and affection is essential as without it, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to establish attachment
• Harlow evaluation:

  strength:

  • cannot perform this on humans - can refer it to feral children as their development is delayed and cannot be improved

  weakness:

  • generalisation of monkeys to humans is complex as they are a different species
  • distress caused long-term consequences on their development and can be deemed unethical