| What did Lorenz notice in new-born orphaned animals? | They formed a rapid attachment to any animal that happens to be present and follow it as if it were their real mother. |
| What is a animal experiment? | Studying animals in a controlled setting with an IV. Conducted by ethologists. |
| A strength of animal studies? | Can be done on animals that would be impractical or unethical to do with humans |
| A weakness of animal studies? | Issue with animal extrapolation, humnas are still very different to animals - they may sahre a genotype but they do not share a phenotype |
| What was Lorenz's aim? | To examine the phenomenon of imprinting in non-human animals |
| What was the procedure with Lorenz | -Random devide of goose eggs into 2 batchs.
-1 batch, control group, hatched naturally by the mother
-2 batch, experimental gourp, placed in incubator and made sure that the first large moving object they saw was Lorenz. |
| What did Lorenz find with naturally-hatched goslings compared to incubator-hatched? | They followed their mother goose, unlike incubator-hatched goslings which followed Lorenz |
| What happened to naturally-hatched goslings when placed under an upside down box compared to experimental group? | They followed their mother immediately unlike the incubator-hatched which followed Lorenz |
| What was the critical period for attachment in Lorenz study? | 4-25 hours after hatching
It was irreverisble |
| Conclusion of Lorenz? | Suggests that imprinting is a form of attachment that is exhibited by birds that leave the nest early, where they imprint onto the first large, moving object they encounter after hatching |
| What was the aim of Harlow's study? | To examine the extent to which contact comfort and food influences attachment behaviour in baby rhesus monkey's. |
| What were the 2 mothers in Harlow's experiment? | 2 surrogate mtohers: one harsh 'wire mother' and one soft 'towling mother' |
| What different conditions were the monkeys put in? | 16 baby monkesy put into 2 differnt caged conditions.
1: the milk was dispensed by the plain 'wire mother'
2: the milk was dispensed by the 'towelling mother' |
| What was recorded with Harlow? | The amount of time monkey's spent alongside each mother, how long spent feeding with each monkey. |
| How did Harlow test for Mother presense? | They played loud noises and their responses were recorded. |
| What was another condition for Harlow? | A large cage were used in some conditions to observe their degress of exploration by the baby monkeys. |
| What was the critical period for Harlow? | 90 days |
| What did Harlow find in preferrment of monkeys? | Given the choice, they preferred the 'towelling mother' irrespective if she dispensed milk. It would strech to the 'wire mother' for food while still holding onto the 'towelling mother' |
| What happened to monkeys with wire mothers? | Showed signs of distress like diarrhea |
| What happened if there was a loud noise with the monkeys? | They would cling to the 'towelling mother' when avaliable. |
| When was greater exploration seen with the monkeys? | When the baby had the 'towelling mother' |
| What is the conclusion for Harlow? | They appear to have an innate drive to seek contact comfort from their parents suggests that attachment is formed through emotional need for security rather than food.
Allows for higher willingness to explore their surroundings and lower level of stress. |
| What were the long term effects of Harlow's experiment on the monkeys? | The maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
They were more aggressive and less sociable and they bred less
When they were mothers, they neglected their young - some even attacking and killing their children. |
| A strength of Lorenz's study? | -Supporting research
-Guiton supporting imprinting with Leghorn chicken on yellow rubber gloves that they were fed on for the first weeks of their lives.
-The male chikcens later tried to mate with the gloves, showing that early imprinting linked to reproductive behaviour
-Supports that a young animal will imprint on any moving obejct during the critical period, rather than having an innate drive. |
| A weakness of Lorenz's study? | -Criticism of the process
-Guiton found that the chickens imprinting on the yellow gloves were reveresed.
-After spending time with their own species, they could engage in normal sexual behaviour with other chickens. Suggests its more plastic and flexible mechanism than thought initially.
-Suggests that imprinting is not differnt from other kinds of learning, rapid, done with litte conscious effort and reversible. Changes inital view about the permanence of imprinting. |
| A strength of Harlow's study? | -Real life application
-Help with social workers and clinical psychologists to understand that lack of bonding experience can be a risk factor in child development
-Allows professional bodies to intervene, to prevent poor developmental outcomes for babies (Howe)
-Means that the reserach is both theoretical and practical for humans and animals, since the importnace of attachments figures for monkeys in zoos is also understood. |
| A weakness of Harlow's study? | -Potential confounding variables
-2 surrogate mothers were varied on their heads
-This could be a confounding variable due to them being varied systematically with the IV of the mother being cloth or wire.
-Possible that the reson the monkey's preferred one mother other the other is bc the moth mother had a more attactive head, which means that the conclusions drawn may lack internal validity. |
