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.