Psychology for Busy People by Joel Levy

Author:Joel Levy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael O'Mara

Bowlby also believed that lack of attachment in early years (aka ‘maternal deprivation’) could have severe consequences in later life. Neglected or maternally deprived children will be withdrawn and developmentally challenged, and will carry maladaptive behaviour and psychology into adult life. Outcomes that Bowlby linked to maternal deprivation included delinquency, reduced intelligence, aggression and depression. Some evidence to back up his theories was provided by the maternal separation experiments with monkeys carried out by Harry Harlow (1905–81).

When monkeys are reared without mothers

Harlow was an American psychologist who, from 1959, explored issues of maternal separation and infant attachment needs in a controversial series of experiments with baby rhesus monkeys. Newborn monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth and reared in isolation in cages along with two surrogate ‘mothers’. One was just a tube of bare wire, while the other was wire covered in a towelling cloth. Harlow showed that even when the wire ‘mother’ was equipped with a bottle dispensing milk, the infant monkeys preferred to spend their time clinging to the cloth ‘mother’. When Harlow introduced a teddy-bear toy drummer into the cage to frighten them, the monkeys always ran to the cloth mother.

The experiment seemed to prove several points:

Lorenz, imprinting and attachment at first sight

Konrad Lorenz became famous for his work on the phenomenon of imprinting in geese. He discovered that when goslings hatch there is a critical window during which they form a strong attachment to whatever is in their visual field, i.e. they are genetically programmed to imprint on significant visual stimuli, which in nature would be their care-giver. Lorenz gave a striking demonstration of the phenomenon when he separated a clutch of goose eggs and let half of the hatchlings imprint on a female goose and half on him. The goslings were then mixed together under a box and Lorenz and the goose were placed opposite one another, and when the box was lifted the mass of goslings sorted itself neatly into the two original groups, one going to Lorenz and the other to the goose.

Lorenz and others found that the critical period is within twelve to seventeen hours after hatching, and that if imprinting does not take place within thirty-two hours it will not happen at all. Imprinting is believed to be a one-off, irreversible event. Lorenz had proved that, for some creatures at least, attachment is an instinctive, hardwired response.

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