Animal Studies

Question 1

What was Lorenz procedure?

Answer 1

Procedure:
- investigate imprinting (attaching to the first thing you see)
- took a clutch of goslings and randomly split into 2 groups
- 1 group hatch with other, the other incubator hatched with Lorenz as the first thing they saw
- Lorenz marked the 2 groups to distinguish

Long term:
- one of the geese imprinted on him slept in his bed. Discovered this was sexual imprinting

Question 2

What was Lorenz findings?

Answer 2

Findings:
- goslings divided themselves, one followed mum the other followed lorenz
- the ones in incubator had no recognition of mother
- imprinting restricted to the critical period, if not exposed to living thing in this period, animal will not Imprint
- animals imprint on moving objects in first 2 days
- Lorenz taught goslings how to swim and they returned to him when asked

Question 3

Evaluation of Lorenz (positive)

Answer 3

+ imprinting is similar to Bowlbys critical period in maternal deprivation.
+ gutton exposed chickens to rubber gloves and they imprinted to it

Question 4

Negatives of Lorenz

Answer 4

• imprinting is more reversible, Gutton reversed the imprinting in chickens that tried to mate with glove, spent time with their own species
• critical period may be more of a sensitive period in humans as people can recover as seen in Romanian orphan studies
• hard to apply this to humans, we are very different etc

Question 5

What was Harlows procedure?

Answer 5

Procedure:
- 2 wire monkeys
- one in soft cloth
- 8 monkeys separated from mum and studied for 165 days
- placed in cage with 2 surrogate mothers
- four of the monkeys got milk from the cloth mother
- the other got it from the wire mother
- wire monkey dispensed food, cloth didn’t
- time spent with each one documented

Question 6

What was Harlows findings?

Answer 6

• all monkeys spent most time with cloth mother
• only stayed with wire mother long enough for milk
• when frightened, they clung to soft mother
• needed cloth mother to explore new environments

Long term:
- developed abnormally, froze or fled when around other monkeys
- didn’t show normal mating behaviour
- couldn’t cradle own babies
- they could recover but only if they were less than 3 months only

Question 7

Positives of Harlow

Answer 7

+ suggests that comfort more important than food contradicting learning theory
+ fits with maternal deprivation theory, however in humans, this may be more of a sensitive priority as we can recover
+ Schaffer et al, food not needed for attachment to form, play was more important

Question 8

Negatives of Harlow

Answer 8

• unethical, long term emotional harm
  -hard to take findings and apply them to humans