Animal studies of attachment

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  • Animal studies of attachment
    • Imprinting
      • Innate readiness to develop a strong bond with the mother which takes place rapidly. Has to happen in critical period, or won't at all.
      • Study: Lorenz. Split gosling eggs into two groups. G1 left with natural mother. G2 placed in incubator. G2 saw Lorenz when born, attached to him. G1 saw natural mother, attached to her.
      • Process irreversible, early imprinting has effects on later mate preferences
      • Has to happen within critical period or wont at all.
    • Harlow
      • Two wire mothers. One covered in cloth, one with milk bottle. All 8 monkeys spent most time with cloth mother, and only went to wired for food. Comfort over food.
      • More than 6 months with wire mother: developed abnormally, froze/fled from other monkeys, didn't cradle young, sexually abnormal
      • Time spent with monkeys before 3 months old enabled recovery
    • Evaluation
      • S: Research support- Guiton 1966, leghorn chicks.
      • W: Guiton reversed effects of imprinting, not very different from any other kind of learning, heads were different- monkeys may have preferred type of head to cloth, difficult to generalise to humans, ethical issues- study had long lasting negative effects on monkeys

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