Animal studies of attachment
- Created by: Emilywilkinson12
- Created on: 09-05-18 15:02
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- AO1:
- Key study 1 - Lorenz's reseach - Imprinting:
- procedure - Lorenz set up a classic experiment which he randomly divided 12 goose eggs, half hatched with the mother goose in their natural environment and the other half hatched in an incubator where the first moving object they saw was lorenz.
- Findings - The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere whereas the control group, hatched in the presence of their mother, followed her. When the 2 groups were mixed up the control group continued to follow the mother and the experimental group followed Lorenz. this phenomenon is called imprinting - whereby bird species that are mobile from birthattach to and follow the first moving object they see. Lorenz identified a critical period in which imprnting must take place, e.g a few hours after hatching. If imprinting did not occur within the time, chicks didn't attach themselves to the mother figure.
- Lorenz also investigated the realtionship between imprinting and adult male preferences. he observed that birds that imprinted on a human would often later display courtship behaviour towads other humans.
- Key study 2 - Harlow - Importance of contact comfort:
- Procedure - Harlow observed that newborms kept alone in a bare cage usually died but that they usually survived if given something soft like a cloth to cuddle. Harlow tested the idea by rearing 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire model 'mothers'. In one condition milk was dispensed by the plain wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother.
- Findings - it was found that the baby monkeys cuddled the soft object in preference to the wire ones, and…
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