Attachment
Animal studies
Aim: to study the attachment behaviours in geese
AO1= Procedure: Experiment=randomly divided a clutch of goose eggs= Half hatched with their mother in their natural environment (control group)= half hatched in an incubator where the first thing they saw was Lorenz (incubator group)
Lorenz gosling study
Findings: Incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere=Control group followed their mother= When the two groups were mixed up the incubator group followed Lorenz
Findings: This is known as imprinting= Bird species attach to and follow the first moving object they see= this can happen within a few hours= critical period
AO3:
If it does not imprint during the critical period it will not imprint at all
Sexual imprinting: Birds who imprinted on humans would later in life only attempt to mate with humans
Lorenz findings: Similar to attachment= supports the theory that attachment is innate
Biologically programmed to form a bond with a caregiver
Observations questioned: Guiton (1966)= Chickens attached to yellow rubber gloves= tried to mate with them as adults= This supports the idea of imprinting, However= with the experience they learned to prefer mating with chickens= suggests imprinting is not as permanent as Lorenz believed.
Real world application:= Imprinting migratory birds to microlight aircrafts= Teach them migratory flight paths= Reintroduce birds to where they have become extinct
Harlow's monkey's AO1: Aim= to demonstrated that attachment was not based on the feeding between mother and infant
Procedure: 8 rhesus monkeys= 2 wire mothers in each cage= one cloth covered mother and one plain wire mother
Condition 1 : 4 monkeys, the milk bottle was with the cloth mother= condition 2: 4 monkey's, the milk bottle was with the plain wire mother= time spent with each mother was recorded= response to fear as also measured
Findings: All 8 monkey's spent most time with the cloth mother whether or not it had the deeding bottle =
Those who fed from the plain wire mother only spent a short amount of time getting the ilk and then returned to the cloth mother
When frightened – all monkeys clung to the cloth mother
Playing with new toys – all monkeys kept one foot on the cloth mother as a secure base/for reassurance
It shows that comfort and contact are most important in developing attachment
Long lasting effects:
Motherless monkeys developed abnormally
Socially abnormal – froze or fled from peers
Sexually abnormal – did not engage in mating rituals
Monkeys went on to be poor mothers themselves
Lorenz=green
Harlow= purple
Harlow found a critical period=Monkeys could recover as long as they spent time with their peers before the age of 3 months
Ethical issues :
A03= Generalising findings to humans:
Difficult
Different psychological and physiological attributes
Human decisions are governed by conscious decisions – we are far more complex than animals
Therefore we may not find the same results if the study was conducted on humans
However, this does support Shaffer and Emerson’s findings (Glasgow study) that we do not attach to those who feed us
Monkeys suffered greatly
Long lasting effects e.g. relationships with peers
Question of whether it should have been done with monkeys
However, the benefits may outweigh the costs to the animals involved
Significant effect on our understanding of the process of attachment and has been used to offer better human (and primate) care to infants