animal studies

    Cards (8)

    • 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
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