Animal studies of attachment

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  • Created by: danbot77
  • Created on: 26-04-21 10:46
Why are animal studies conducted?
There is an assumed biological continuity between animals and humans which we can make assumptions from. Also, they are considered more ethical.
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What was the aim of Lorenz's study?
To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting (where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object they see.
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What was the method of Lorenz's study?
Lorenz divided goose eggs randomly into groups. Half would see their mother when they first hatched, half would see Lorenz
when they hatched. He marked each member of the groups and observed them with both their mother and him.
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What were the findings of Lorenz's study?
The goslings quickly divided themselves and followed whoever they saw first when hatched. Lorenz's group showed no recognition of their mother. Imprinting in a restricted time period (critical period). Animal won't imprint ever if they fail to now.
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What was the conclusions of Lorenz's study?
Bird species show that they form an attachment to the first moving thing they see (imprinting) and is a form of attachment.
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What is one support of Lorenz's study?
(supporting evidence)
Guiton found chicks would even imprint onto yellow rubber gloves. No biological predisposition. Guiton also found this may affect sexual development as the chickens tried to mate with the rubber gloves.
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What is one criticism of Lorenz's study?
(irreversible imprinting)
Guiton found that the imprinting he found could be reversed if the chickens spent enough time with their own species.
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What is one support of Lorenz's study?
(real life application)
San Diego zoo feeds its chicks that don't have
mothers with realistic looking hand puppets to allow them to imprint onto something more realistic.
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What was the aim of Harlow's study?
To test the effect of "cupboard love" and to see if attachments are formed through food.
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What was the method of Harlow's study?
16 baby monkeys were reared with two "mothers". One was wire which gave milk and the other was cloth without milk. Time with mothers was recorded. He also scared the monkeys to test for mother preference during stress.
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What was the findings of Harlow's study?
Monkeys preferred the cloth mother despite her lack of milk. Sought comfort from cloth
mother when stressed. Monkeys who didn't go to cloth mother lacked later development. Some failing to mate and some killing their offspring!
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What was the conclusion of Harlow's study?
"Contact comfort" was more important to the monkeys than food. Monkeys had innate need for comfort. Attachment concerns emotional security more than food.
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What is one criticism of Harlow's study?
(ethics)
The monkeys suffered alot from the study and due to their similarity to humans, we can consider this human-like suffering. However, the significant practical applications has been said to justify this. Social workers can work to reduce effects of neglect.
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What is one weakness of Harlow's study?
(generalisability)
Despite their similarity, the monkeys are still not human which means there may be less similarities, making the results less generalisable to humans.
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What is one weakness of Harlow's study?
(internal validity)
There was a confounding variable as the mothers faces were different. The more "monkey like" face may have affected attachment meaning that internal validity is low as contact comfort wasn't the only thing being tested.
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What was the aim of Lorenz's study?

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To investigate the mechanisms of imprinting (where the youngsters follow and form an attachment to the first large moving object they see.

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What was the method of Lorenz's study?

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What were the findings of Lorenz's study?

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What was the conclusions of Lorenz's study?

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