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Aim
- Investigate mother-infants attachment in birds.
Procedure
- Lab experiment & randomly divided clutch of gosling (independent groups design)
- Control group= half the eggs were left w/ the mother goose in their natural environment.
- Experimental group= half the eggs were placed in an incubator. When they hatched the first moving object they saw was Lorenz.
- Test the effects of imprinting Lorenz marked the 2 groups to distinguish them & placed together. Both Lorenz & their natural mother were present.
- Long term effects = Lorenz also followed the geese into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
Findings
- Experimental group (saw Lorenz first) followed him closely, as if he were their mother & appeared to have formed a rapid attachment w/ him.
- Control group followed their biological mother.
- The 2 groups separated to go to their 'respective' mothers - half goose, half Lorenz.
- Long term effects = Process of imprinting is irreversible & long lasting.
- Early imprinting had an effect on later mate preferences, called sexual imprinting.
- Critical Period= Period which imprinting needed to have taken place.
- If imprinting doesn't occur w/in this time, Chicks didn't attach themselves to a mother figure.
Conclusion
- Lorenz's research highlighted the importance of imprinting & also how attachments have an evolutionary advantage.
- B/c young animals that follows its Mother is more likely to be safe from predators, to be fed & to learn how to find food - increase chance of survival & natural selection.
- Guiton exposed leghorn chicks to yellow rubber gloves whilst feeding them, first few weeks after birth.
- Found they became imprinted on the glove.
- Supports view that young animals aren't born w/ a predisposition to imprint on a specific object but on any moving object that is present during the critical window of development.
- However, many psychologists now dispute Lorenz's view that imprinting is permanent & has long term effects.
- in Guiton's research, when chicks matured, this early imprint acted as a mate template.
- However, after chicks spent some time w/ their own species, they engaged in normal mating behaviour.
- Therefore illustrates how imprinting can be reversed.
- What did Guiton expose Leghorn Chicks to?
- What did he find.
-Supports the view that...
- Many psychologists now dispute Lorenz's view that...
- When the chicks matured what did the early imprinting act as?
- However, how was this undone?
- What doe this illustrate?
- Demonstrate that attachment wasn't based on the feeding bond between mother & infant as predicted by learning theory.
- Lab experiment in order to rear baby monkeys w. 2 wire model 'mothers'.
- Split monkeys into 2 groups (independent groups design).
- Condition 1 = milk dispensed by plain wire mother.
- Condition 2 = milk dispensed by a cloth-covered monkey.
- Monkeys studied for 165 days.
- Measurements made of the amount of time each spent w/ the 2 different mothers.
- Observations also made of monkey infants responses when frightened by (mechanical teddy).
Long term effects = Harlow followed monkeys into adulthood to see if early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
- Baby monkeys spent most time w. cloth-covered monkey whether or not his mother had feeding bottle.
- When frightened, all monkeys clung to cloth-covered monkey & when playing w/ new objects kept one foot on them for reassurance.
- Long term effects = Motherless monkeys developed abnormally into adulthood.
- More aggressive & less sociable & the bred less.
- Deprived monkeys neglected their young & others attacked & sometimes killed their children.
- Critical period = Mother figure had to be introduced to an infant monkey w/in 90 days for an attachment to form (but observation was 165 days).
- After this time, damage done was irreversible.
Conclusions
- Attachment doesn't develop as a result of being fed but as a result of contact comfort.
-Showed the importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development including adult relationships & rearing children.
- Went against dominant belief that attachment was related to physical care & instead showed importance of emotional care.
- Led to important applications w/ both humans & animals.
-E.G has helped social workers understand risk factors in child neglect & abuse & so intervene to prevent it.
- Findings also important in care of captive monkeys as we now understand the importance of adequate attachment figures for babies in zoo & also in breeding programmesin the wild.
- Therefore illustrates how Harlow's research has been used in a no. of contexts & has practical value.
- Harlow's research went against the dominant belief that?
- Led to important implications w/ who?
- E.G w./ social workers.
-Also important in the care of captive monkeys as we now understand...
- What does this illustrate.
- Strength = has influenced research into human attachment such as Bowlby's idea of a critical period in human babies.
- Although some of the findings have influenced our understanding of human development, there is a problem of extrapolating from findings an animals to human.
- Human attachment behaviour is very different to others animals especially as much more of our behaviour is governed by conscious decisions.
- Mammalian mothers - more emotional attachment to young than birds.
= May not be appropriate to generalise work from animal studies in order to explain human attachment.
- What is a strength of extrapolation to attachment in human infants?
- How is human attachment behaviour is very different to other animals?
- Difference between mammalian mothers & birds.
- What does this mean?
- Both studies created stress to the young animals after being separated from their mothers.
-Also caused long term emotional harm as animals found it difficult to form relationships as adults including the formation of appropriate mating strategies.
- However, experiments can be justified in terms of the significant effect they have had on our understanding of the process of attachment in humans.
- Therefore could be argued that the benefits outweigh the costs to the animals & is something to consider what counts as good science.
-What did both studies create for the young animals who were separated from their mothers?
- How do you know they have experienced long term emotional harm?
- How can these experiments be justified?
-Talk about cost/benefits.
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