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Animal Studies of Attachment (Harlow (Procedure (Researched 16 baby rhesus…
Animal Studies of Attachment
Lorenz (1935)
Procedure
As an adult researcher, Lorenz set up a classic experiment in which he randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs. Half hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment. Other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was Lorenz
Findings: Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group hatched in presence of their mother, followed her. When the two groups were mixed up, the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group continued to follow Lorenz.
Called imprinting - bird species are mobile from birth so attach and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. Depending on the species, can be just a few hours after hatching. If imprinting doesn't occur withing the time Lorenz found, chicks didn't attach themselves to a mother figure.
Harlow
Procedure
Researched 16 baby rhesus monkeys with two wire model mothers. In one condition, milk was dispensed by the plain wire monkey, whereas in the second condition milk was dispensed by a cloth covered monkey
Findings
Found that baby monkeys cuddled with soft objects in preference to wired one and sought comfort from cloth covered one when frightened regardless of which dispensed milk. Showed that 'contact comfort' was more important to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Long term effects
As a result of maternal development, the monkeys had poor social skills and were aggressive and afraid.
Evaluating Lorenz's research
Dispute over characteristic of imprinting - original concept is very fixed and inflexible, however it's understood that imprinting is more 'plastic' than 'forgiving'. Guiton (1966) found that he could reverse effects of imprinting in chickens who initially tried to mate with rubber gloves by getting them to spend time with their own species. Their sexual behaviour returned to normal with other chickens.
Research from Sluckin's ducklin's (1966) - Sluckin performed a replication of Lorenz's research with ducklings. Successfully imprinted them onto himself, but kept one duckling in isolation for well beyond Lorenz's critical period (up to 5 days). He found it was still possible to imprint this young duckling and instead the critical period was a sensitive period.
Sensitive period: Where individuals are more susceptible to certain stimuli in the environment
Generalising animal studies to human behaviour to human behaviour - Lorenz investigated imprinting in birds. there is an issue with generalising findings from birds to humans. The mammalian attachment system is quite different as mammals are able to form attachments at any time and mothers show more emotional attachments to their young.
Evaluating Harlow's research
Confounding variables - In Harlow's study, the 2 stimulus objects varied in more ways than being cloth covered or not. 2 heads also different, acted as a confounding variable. Possible that this was the reason that infant monkeys preferred one ' mother' to another. Therefore results lack ecological validity
Generalising animal studies to human behaviour. The ultimate aim for animal research is to be able to generalise findings to humans. However, humans differ in important ways as more of their behaviour is governed by conscious decisions. Nevertheless, a number of studies have found that observations of animal behaviour are mirrored in studies on humans (eg Schaffer and Emerson) - not attached to person who fed them.
Ethical issues - Harlow's research could not be replicated with human infants, also raises the question o f whether it should be done with monkeys. Study created lasting emotional harm as the infant monkey later found it difficult to form attachment with peers or own offspring. On the other hand, experiment can be justified because of significant effect it had on our understanding of processes of attachment and subsequent research in this area has led to improved care fro human and primate infants