Attachment: Animal Studies

Attachment: Animal Studies

1. Lorenz (1935)

   • Investigated the mechanisms of imprinting
     • Where birds attach to and follow the first moving thing they see
   • Lorenz split a clutch of greylag goose eggs into two batches
     • one naturally hatched by the mother
       • One in an incubator with Lorenz as the first moving object they saw.
   • The incubator group followed Lorenz everywhere
     • The control group followed their mother
       • The same happened when the groups were mixed
         • There was a critical period of between 4-25 hours (depending on species) and if imprinting did not occur the chicks did not attach to a mother figure
           • Lorenz subsequently reported that the goslings imprinted on humans would later attempt to mate with humans.

2. Harlow

   • To determine whether food or close comfort was the important factor in attachment
     • Harlow placed 16 baby rhesus monkeys in cages with two surrogate mothers
       • a harsh wire mother
       • a soft towelling mother
   • There were four conditions
     • wire mother producing milk, towel mother no milk
       • wire mother no milk, towelling mother producing milk -
         • wire mother producing milk
           • towelling mother producing milk
   • Monkeys preferred contact with the towelling mother when given a choice
     • regardless of whether she produced milk
       • Monkeys with only the wire mother showed signs of stress as had diarrhoea
         • When frightened by a loud noise, monkeys clung to the towelling mother
           • In larger cage conditions monkeys with towelling mothers explored more and visiting their surrogate mothers more often.
             • AS ADULTS some monkeys were considerably less social and more aggressive, including neglecting their youg