animal studies of attachment

• Animal studies

  Research studies carried out on non-human animal species, for ethical or practical reasons
• Lorenz's imprinting procedure

  • Divide large clutch of goose eggs
  • Half hatched with mother goose
  • Half hatched in an incubator (Lorenz= first moving object they saw)
• Lorenz's imprinting findings

  • Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere vs control group, who followed mother
  • Imprinting= bird species that are mobile from birth attach to and follow the first moving object they see
  • Identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place (as brief as a few hours after birth)
• Lorenz's procedure and findings on sexual imprinting

  • Imprinting between peacock and tortoise
  • The peacock had undergone sexual imprinting (only directed courtship towards tortoise)
  • Found that birds that imprinted on a human would later display courtship behaviour towards humans
• (Lorenz) Strength: I- Research support. D- Regolin and Vallortigara= chicks were exposed to simple shape combinations that moved. Range of shape combinations were moved in front of them, and they followed the original most closely. E- Supports view that animals are born with an innate mechanism to imprint on a moving object
• (Lorenz) Limitation: I- Generalisability to humans. D- Hard to generalise findings and conclusions from birds to humans as mammalian attachment system is different and more complex than that in birds. Mammals= two-way process. E- Means it is inappropriate to generalise Lorenz’s findings to humans
• (Lorenz)- Applications to understanding human behaviour

  Strength: Humans acquire some behaviours by means of imprinting (explains why many prefer the first computer system they use)

  Limitation: Humans don’t form primary attachments to first moving object, so imprinting may be of limited value when applied to human attachment development
• Harlow's contact comfort procedure

  • Reared 16 baby rhesus monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’
  • In one condition, milk was dispensed by the plain-wire mother whereas in the second condition, the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother
• Harlow's contact comfort findings

  • Baby monkeys cuddled the cloth-covered mother vs plain-wire mother, and took comfort here despite which mother dispensed milk
  • 22 hours a day, monkeys seeked comfort in the cloth-covered mother
  • ‘Contact comfort’ was more important to the monkeys than food
• Harlow's procedure and findings for maternal deprivation

  • Followed monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother into adulthood, to see if maternal deprivation had a permanent effect
  • Deprived monkeys were typically more aggressive, less sociable, and bred less often than other monkeys
  • When they became mothers, some deprived monkeys neglected their young, some attacked their children, even killing them in some cases
• Harlow's critical period

  90 days
• (Harlow) Strength: I- Real world value. D- Helped social workers/clinical psychologists to understand that a lack of bonding may impact development. Allows professionals to intervene and prevent poor outcomes (Howe). Helps us understand the importance of attachment figures for baby monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes. E- Means value of research is not just theoretical but also practical
• (Harlow) Limitation: I- Generalisability to humans. D- Rhesus monkeys are more similar to humans than Lorenz’s birds, and all mammals share some common attachment behaviours. But, the human brain and human behaviour is more complex than that of monkeys. E- May be inappropriate to generalise findings to humans
• (Harlow)- Ethical issues

  Limitation: Stressful for monkeys (long-term stress)

  Strength:  Practical applications have benefited large numbers of animals and humans, so may be justified