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Lorenz's and Harlow's Research. - Coggle Diagram
Lorenz's and Harlow's Research.
Lorenz's Research.
In the early 20th century a number of ethologists like Lorenz conducted animal studies of the relationships between new-born animals and their mothers. These studies gave us a greater understanding of human caregiver- infant attachments.
Procedure.
Lorenz randomly divided up a group of gosling eggs.
One group of eggs were placed with their real mothers and the other in an incubator.
When the incubator eggs hatched the first thing they saw who Lorenz and they started following him around.
To test the effect of imprinting Lorenz marked the two groups and place them together, they had become imprinted on him even when their natural mother was present.
Findings.
The Lorenz's birds followed him everywhere and showed no recognition of their real mother. He called this imprinting.
Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprinting needs to take place. Depending on the species this can be as brief as a few hours after birth. If imprinting does not occur within that time Lorenz found that chocks didn't attach themselves to a mother figure.
Sexual Imprinting.
Lorenz investigated the relationship between imprinting and adult mate preferences. He observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towards humans.
In a case study in 1952, he found that when a peacock was first born the first thing he saw was a giant tortoise. As an adult, the bird showed only direct courtship behaviours towards the giant tortoise.
Long-Lasting Effect.
Lorenz noted that imprinting is long lasting and irreversible. He noted that one bird called Martina imprinted on him and slept on his bed every night.
Harlow's Research.
Harlow conducted a landmark research on attachment. He called his report 'Origins of Love' and he demonstrated that mother love attachment.
Procedure.
Harlow 1958 tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother.
In one experiment he reared sixteen baby monkeys who each had two segregate mothers: one wire mother and one cloth soft mother.
In one condition milk was dispensed by the wire mother and in the other, it was dispensed from the cloth-covered mother.
Measurements were made about how long each monkey spent with each other.
Obersavatins were also made about the infants' response when frightened by a machineal monster.
Findings.
The baby monkeys cuddled the cloth mother and preferred it to the wire monkey.
The infants preferred to sought comfort with the cloth mother regardless of which mother fed them.
The cloth monkey became a safe base for the infants. This was demonstrated when the infants were frightened and they ran straight to the cloth mother or when playing with new objects they kept one foot on the cloth mother.
Showed that attachments are not nesseccarly developed with the one who feeds us.
Maternally Deprived Monkeys as Adults.
Harlow found that monkeys who had been deprived of a 'real' mother had a permanent effect.
ie:
More likely to be bullied.
Couldn't stand up for themselves.
Couldn't mate well.
Were more aggressive.
They were inadequate and often abused their infants in some cases killing them.
Long Lasting Effect Resolved.
Harlow found that if the motherless monkeys spent time with their 'peers' they seem to recover only if this happens before three months old. More than six months with the wire monkey meant it was impossible for the damage to be undone.
Evaluation.
Research supporting Imprinting.
Guiton 1966 demonstrated that Leghorn Chicks when exposed to yellow gloves feeding them after they were born became imprinted on the gloves.
This means young animals are not born with a predisposition to imprint on a specific type.
He later discovered that the male ducks when older tried to mate with gloves showing that this early imprinting linked to late reproductive behaviour.
Criticisms.
There is a problem with generalising from birds to humans. Mammal mothers show more emotional attachment to young than birds do.
Also, the idea that imprinting is permanent was questioned by Guiton et al.(1966) who found that chicken imprinted on a yellow rubber glove would try to mate with them as adults but with experience they eventually learned to prefer mating with other chicken.
It was also thought that imprinting may not be different from any other kind of learning. Learning can take place rapidly, with little conscious effort. It is also fairly reversiable.
His findings have been highly influential within the ruled of developmental psychology
Ie
The fact that m printing is seen to be irreversible suggests that attachment formation us under biolgocial control and that attachment formation happens within a specific time frame.
This is a strength because it lead developmental psychologists like Bowlby to develop well recognised theories of attachment suggesting the attachment formation takes palce during a cirtucial period and is a biolgocial process. Such theories have been highlighted influential in the way child care is administered today.
Evaluation.
Criticims.
The monkeys in these studies suffered greatly. The rhesus monkey is considered similar enough to humans to generalise the findings, which also means that there suffering was presumably quite human-like. The counter-argument is that Harlow’s research was sufficiently important to justify the effects.
Confounding Variable.
The two stimulus objects varied in more than one cloth and one wire mother. Their faces were different. Therefore, the monkey may have preferred the cloth monkey not because it was soft and less rigid but because her head was more attractive.
Ethical Issues.
Harlow's studies could not be done with humans as it would be seen as TOO inhuman. His studies caused the infants to have long lasting emotional damage.
However, he gained a greater understanding of attachment and therefore, we learned how to take better care of human infants. Thus, you could argue that the benefits outweigh the costs.
The fact that the goslings studies imprinted irreversibly so early in life, suggests that this was operating within a critical period, which was underpinned by biological changes. The longevity of the goslings’ bond with Lorenz would support the view that, on some level, early attachment experiences do predict future bonds. The powerful instinctive behaviour that the goslings displayed would suggest that attachments are biologically programmed into species according to adaptive pressures; goslings innately follow moving objects shortly after hatching, as this would be adaptive given their premature mobility.