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Animal Studies - Coggle Diagram
Animal Studies
Lorenz 1935 A01
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Procedure
Divided a set of goose eggs into two groups, one stayed with the mother, the other was hatched in an incubator with Lorenz.
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He marked both groups and put them back together with him and the natural mother to see who they followed, Lorenz' goslings ignored the mother and followed him instead.
Findings
Lorenz' group showed no real recognition of their mother, suggesting that geese who imprint on humans show courtship towards them.
Noticed this was restricted to a definite period of the young animal's life. As he was the first thing they saw, they imprinted on him.
Suggested there is a critical period in which imprinting must happen otherwise it will not happen at all. It also had a later effect on mate preference, animals will choose a mate of the same object they imprinted on.
Lorenz A03
Research Support
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Guiton 1966 - leghorn chicks exposed to yellow rubber gloves while being fed in the first few weeks, imprinted on them.
Supports view that young animals are not predisposed on what to imprint on, Guiton also found male chicks later tried to mate with the gloves showing imprinting influences reproductive behaviour.
Criticisms
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Hoffman 1996 - imprinting was a more 'plastic and forgiving mechanism' but Guiton 1966 - found he could reverse imprinting by making them spend time with their own species.
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Lacks generalisability
It is an animals, so won't necessarily relate to people.
Harlow 1959 A01
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Procedure
16 monkeys raised with 2 surrogate mothers: cloth mother, and wire mother with food.
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Findings
Monkeys were frightened, would cuddle up to cloth mother for comfort suggesting comfort was more important than food.
Monkeys had problems as adults, suggesting maternal deprivation has life-long consequences.
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Harlow A03
Confounding Variables
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The heads were different, acting as a confounding variable. It is possible the monkeys preferred one to the other because they found the cloth one more attractive.
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Generalisability
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Humans differ in important ways - more of their behaviour is governed by conscious decision. But some studies found observations mirror human studies e.g. Harlow supported by Schaffer and Emerson.
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Ethics
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Could be argued benefits outweigh costs to animals. Such criticisms could monitor what is 'good' science.
Created lasting emotional harm on the monkeys, found it difficult to form relationships with peers, but significant effect on our understanding of attachment process to better care for infants and people.