Psychology - Paper 1 - Attachment - Animal studies of attachment

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Who are the 2 main theorists who studies attachment in animals?
Lorenz and Harlow.
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What did Lorenz look into?
Imprinting
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What were his aims?
To investigate the process of imprinting.
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What is imprinting?
Where young animals follow and form an attachment to the first, large moving object they encounter.
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What was his procedure?
Group of gosling eggs and put into 2 groups. 1 was left with natural mother and other was in an incubator. When incubator group hatched the first moving thing they saw was Lorenz. Placed all goslings under box and when released he recorded behaviour.
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What were his findings?
Immediately after birth and after box was released natural ones followed mum and incubator ones followed Lorenz. Found that imprinting only occurred within brief time period of 4-25hrs. Goslings that imprinted on humans would try to mate with humans.
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What were his conclusions?
Imprinting is irreversible so is biological. Critical period for attachment influenced by Bowlby but imprinting can occur beyond CP = sensitive period. Behaviour of birds in adulthood show there is continuity between early A and later relationships.
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What did Harlow study?
Whether monkeys preferred food or comfort.
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What were his aims?
To test whether attachments are primarily formed through food as explained by social learning theory.
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What was his procedure?
2 types of surrogate (wire and cloth). 8infant monkeys studied for 165days. 4 monkeys has milk on the cloth monkey and 4 had it on the wire. Recorded how much time was spent with each monkey. Monkeys were also scared to see preference during stress.
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What were his findings?
All monkeys spent more time with cloth mother, whether or not this monkey had the milk. Monkeys who fed from wire mum only spent short time. When scared, all monkeys went to cloth mum. Didn't develop properly all fled from other monkeys.
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What were his conclusions?
Infant monkeys attach to the mother who offers comfort rather than food suggesting that attachment concerns emotional security rather than food.
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What is an advantage of both the animal studies?
The biological continuity between humans and animals means findings from animals could be applied to humans.
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What is an ethical advantage of the studies?
It's deemed more ethical to study animals as it's unethical to study maternal deprivation on humans.
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What is 1/3 disadvantage?
It's not possible to extrapolate from aniams to humans.
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How can this be applied to lorenz?
Nature and complexity of attachment bond of geese is different to humans. Imprinting applies mainly to precocial animals.
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How can this be applied to Harlow?
Humans have more complex attachments than monkeys. But monkeys are closer to humans than geese so extrapolation may be possible.
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What is 2/3 disadvantage?
The studies may be considered as unethical
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How can this be applied to Lorenz?
Imprinting geese on a human prevented them from having 'normal' relationships with other geese - causing psychological harm.
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How can this be applied to Harlow?
Separation of the baby monkeys caused considerable stress and later psychological harm.
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What is 3/3 disadvantage?
The research can be seen as not justifiable.
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How can this be applied to Lorenz?
Influenced Bowlby's monotropic theory of attachment. Sensitive period found to be important in adoption, has helped human children.
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How can this applied to Harlow?
Influenced Bowlby to develop the maternal deprivation hypothesis. However, some say that the research was unjustifiably unethical.
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Card 2

Front

What did Lorenz look into?

Back

Imprinting

Card 3

Front

What were his aims?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

What is imprinting?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What was his procedure?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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