Useful applications - importance of forming bond between mothers and baby = changes to hospitals

Significant differences in nature and complexity of bonds between humans and animals - Birds vs humans infants = mammals tend to show more emotional attachment towards young - human attachment involves reciprocity and interactional synchrony - bird imprinting is very different - so different why even generalise

Means that Lorenz overestimates the long term effect of imprinting

Harlow study of attachment involved used 2 surrogate mothers, a towel mother and a wire mother and measured the effect of food in attachment vs the effect of comfort on 16 baby rhesus mothers. This involved 4 conditions two where both mothers present and only one had milk and 2 where there was one mother present with milk with a baby rhesus monkeys in a cage. Harlow measured the amount of time the monkeys spent with each mother, how much time spent feeding, how far the monkeys explored and which mother they preferred when frightened. Harlow found that baby monkeys always preferred spending time with the towelling mother regardless of whether it had milk or not and would often cling to the towelling mother when getting milk from the wire mother. He also found that they would seek comfort from the towel when frightened.
Procedure 2/2 Findings 2/2

Ethical issues - Long term negative effects on the monkeys - unskilled at mating and some even killed their children later - short term very distressed, removed from mother Could it be justified? - maybe the findings on privation were significant enough at the time to justify - benefits eg orphanages not just food enough for healthy attachments - primates quite similar to humans and is impossible to study on children

Issues of extrapolation when using animal studies to investigate human attachment - biologically similar - humans much more complex in variables that effect attachment eg social and cultural factors

Insecure Avoidant Avoid intimacy with others (most common insecure in west) 22% in AInsworth

Insecure resitant Both seek and avoid intimacy with others 12% of Ainsworth

Secure attachment - Content and happt relationships and embraces intimacy with others

Difference within cultures was 1 1/2 greater than between cultures

Cultural bias of meta analsysis - Ethnocentric as used US based ainsworth study - behaviours seen as positive in US like autonomy not neccesarily seen positively in other cultures like japan -

Harlow contradicts as found that baby rhesus preferred the towelling mother regardless of access to milk

Animal studies support Montropy = Innate programming (Lorenz) and Monotropy supported by Harlow as they spend most time with the towelling and comforting mother

Monotropy is socially sensitive because it places Mother as responsible for childs problems - negative implications