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Animal studies: Lorenz & Harlow
• Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz & Harlow.
Animal studies: Lorenz & Harlow
• Many animals show attachment behaviour.
• Animal studies have helped psychologists explain why humans make attachments.
• Animal studies have also helped psychologists understand the effects of a lack of attachment bonds in early childhood on child development and adult behaviour.
Animal studies
Animal studies: Lorenz
• Ethology: the study of animal behaviour.
• Konrad Lorenz was the first ethologist to identify and explain attachment in animals.
Animal studies: Lorenz
• Lorenz identified a fast and automatic process of attachment in animals.
• This is called imprinting.
• Imprinting is an innate process that causes an animal to make a very strong attachment to its biological parents or another member of its species because this is important for its survival.
Animal studies: Lorenz
• According to Lorenz attachment has evolved to help the survival of vulnerable offspring.
• Attachment is hardwired.
• All animals respond to visual and behavioural cues to take care of and protect their young.
• These are called social releasers.
Animal studies: ‘Baby face hypothesis’
Animal studies: Lorenz
• Lorenz identified that birds appeared to make an attachment to the first moving object that they see.
• To test the hypothesis that birds make an attachment to the first moving object that they see Lorenz carried out an experiment.
• Read the textbook extract ‘Imprinting – Konrad Lorenz and complete the key study table.
Evaluation: strengths
• Lorenz conducted a field experiment with an independent groups design to test the hypothesis that Goslings will follow the first moving object that they see. • I.V: Whether the goslings saw Lorenz or their
mother first.• D.V: Who they imprinted on.
Evaluation: strengths
• It has high ecological validity because it is a field experiment.
• The findings are reliable because the experiment has been repeated with the same results.
Evaluation: strengths
• The experiment was important in the development of John Bowlby’s theory of attachment in humans.
• It influenced Bowlby’s idea of a critical period in babies forming an attachment to a caregiver.
• It influenced Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis, the idea that early attachment has an influence on adult relationships.
Evaluation: limitations
• Lorenz only investigated attachment in one species: geese.
• This means it’s not possible to generalise the findings of this research to other animals including humans.
• Other animals and humans may have very different attachment processes.
Evaluation: limitations
• Konrad concluded that imprinting was permanent in birds.
• Later research found that this was not true.
• Guiton (1966) found that chickens that imprinted on an object and attempted to mate with that object as adults learnt to mate with members of their own species.
Lorenz: evalaution
• Use your notes and read p.12 to complete the evaluation summary table.