Animal Studies

Animal Studies

1. Lorenz's Research

   • Imprinting
     • First observed when a child and neighbour gave him a newly hatched duckling that then followed him round
     • Procedure
       • Divided a clutch of goose eggs
       • 1/2 hatched with mother goose in natural environment
       • 1/2 hatched in an incubator where first moving object seen was Lorenz
     • Findings
       • Incubator group followed Lorenz, control group followed mother
       • When groups were mixed the geese followed who they imprinted on
   • Sexual Imprinting
     • Observed that birds that imprinted on humans often later display courtship behaviour towards them
     • Peacock reared in a reptile house imprinted on giant tortoises
       • As an adult bird would only direct courtship behaviour towards giant tortoises
       • Lorenz concluded it had undergone sexual imprinting
   • Evaluation
     • Generalisability to humans
     • Some of Lorenz's observations have been questioned

2. Harlow's Research

   • Most important animal research in terms of attachment
   • Importance of Contact Comfort
     • Procedure
       • Reared 16 baby monkeys with 2 wire model mothers
       • In one condition milk was dispensed from the plain wire
       • In a second condition milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother
     • Findings
       • Baby monkeys cuddled the soft object for comfort regardless of which dispensed milk
       • This showed that 'contact comfort' was of more importanc3e than food
   • Maternally deprived monkeys as adults
     • Monkeys reared with wire mothers only were most dysfunctional
     • Even monkeys reared with both did not develop normal social behaviour
       • More aggressive, less sociable, bred less due to being unskilled at mating
     • As mothers, some of the deprived monkeys neglected their young and others attacked their children, even killing them in some cases