2. 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.
4. Animal studies: Lorenz
• Ethology: the study of animal behaviour.
• Konrad Lorenz was the first ethologist to
identify and explain attachment in
animals.
5. 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.
6. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
