How can we tell if an animal is emotionally attached to someone or something?

“Attachment refers to an exclusive, relatively enduring affective bond that one individual (person or animal) forms between himself and another specific individual” (Cairns, RB, 1979).

This essay will address the question; ‘how can we tell if an animal is emotionally attached to someone or something’. Introducing the terms and concepts involved within attachment will develop the answer initially. The essay will explore methods used to measure and test attachment such as separation and preference tests with reference to studies such as Harlow 1958, Hess 1958, Topal 1998 and Jensen & Tolman (1962 cited in Cairns 1979). The essay will consider the attachments made between an animal and it’s young, it’s mate and it’s owner. The essay will be written from the point of view that certain animals do form strong emotional attachments; this stance is taken after careful consideration and research into both sides of the argument. Research such as that recording the behaviour of a young chimpanzee following the death of his mother, reports of geese pining the loss of their mate and the fact that the hormone oxytocin, found to be associated with maternal bonding and sexual activity in human beings, is also found to affect the attachments made by other animals are responsible for the particular viewpoint.

Initially this essay will introduce the concept of attachment. It is generally taken to mean the bond between a mother and her offspring, however attachments are formed with other significant individuals as well.

Filial imprinting is a particular phenomenon associated with creating a bond between an infant and its mother during a critical period. It is observed in precocial animals for example ducklings, goslings, domestic chicks, lambs, calves and kids. These animals typically have well developed sense organs, their bodies are insulated with either hair or down and they are capable of locomotion within a few hours of birth. These young animals follow and stay close to their mother to ensure their survival, during the critical period the animals will follow a large variety of objects (Lorenz 1937, Hess 1958), when the animal becomes familiar with a particular object it will avoid unfamiliar objects, particularly those which don’t look like the original object, eventually it will only follow the original object. Fear is responsible for the reduced tendency to follow objects; if fear is inhibited then the critical period can be extended (Hess 1960). Interestingly it’s been found that traumatic experiences during the critical period strengthen the attachment between the young and the object of imprinting (Fox and Shelzer 1966). It is essentially a form of learning but is distinguished from other forms of learning because it only occurs during a critical period.

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Altricial species on the other hand are birds or animals born in an undeveloped state, they are completely dependant on their parents for warmth, food and care. Examples of Altricial animals include primates (inc humans), cats, dogs and some birds. These animals rely on other mechanisms to facilitate attachments between themselves and their parents, for example presenting their parents with attractive stimuli such as certain physical features and distinctive vocalisations and the hormonal response to the newborn elicited by the parent (particularly the mother). Specific attractive features in primates include a flat face and wide staring eyes, Sternglanz demonstrated in his 1977 experiment that human babies with wide eyes, large forehead, small chin and small nose were the most attractive to adults. It is speculated that these features elicits a nurturing response and inhibits aggressive acts, which again ensures the survival of the infant as in imprinting. When considering studies such as Harlow’s and Jensen & Tolman it’s difficult to put the emotional response observed down to a basic need for survival, there does seem to be a strong emotional desire to be near the figure of attachment for comfort and reassurance. Hormonal changes in the mother also aid the development of attachments between an animal and its offspring as these hormonal changes promote the mothers tendency to protect and retrieve her infant and allow it to suckle. Altricial species tend to carry their young whereas as we have seen in precocial species the young follow their parents; it would be interesting to discover whether this effected the development and strength of the attachment.

The study of the attachments made by animals began with Harry Harlow’s research into infant Rhesus monkeys and the attachments they made. Newborn monkeys were separated from their mothers and placed in individual cages with two surrogate mother monkeys. The surrogate mother monkeys were made of a wire frame with a wooden head, one was left bare the other was covered in terry cloth. The results indicated that the animals spent more time climbing on and clinging to the cloth mother compared to the wire mother, even if the wire mother provided the infant monkey with milk, rejecting the cupboard love theory. Harlow decided that the amount of time cuddling the cloth mother wasn’t a conclusive indicator of emotional attachment. He devised an experiment to elicit fear into the monkey and measured its response. He anticipated that if the monkey were truly attached to the cloth mother her presence would comfort the infant in an unfamiliar situation and would provide a safe base for the infant to explore from. His theory was right, a mechanical bear was placed in the infant’s cage, the infant initially ran to the cloth mother and used her for comfort and reassurance, within minutes the infant appeared less frightened and even approached the mechanical bear. In another test for attachment he placed the infant in a room larger than the one it was used to with a range of unfamiliar objects. If the cloth mother wasn’t there the monkey would demonstrate extreme stress, for example flinging itself onto the floor and screaming. It would also do this if only the wire mother was present. However if the cloth mother were present the monkey would use her as a safe base to explore the room and the objects. These tests demonstrate the methods used to gauge attachment.

Imprinting is tested for in similar, though not identical, ways. Hess (1958) set out to answer questions such as “how long must the infant be exposed to the imprinting object in order for them to discriminate between it and similar objects?” To answer this question the experimenters conducted a preference test. A mallard duckling was imprinted to a model of a male mallard duck. To test whether imprinting had occurred the duckling was released between two decoys, one was the male it was imprinted to the other was a female model.

Other tests for attachment include separation tests. Jensen & Tolman (1962) separated pigtail macaque monkeys from their mothers and observed the response of both the infant and the mother. The hypothesis was that the monkeys would demonstrate the symptoms of separation anxiety for example protest and despair reactions. It was observed that the mother became ferocious towards the attendants, paced the cage and tried to escape, the infant screams almost constantly. This response was also seen in precocial mammals suggesting that the attachments formed are similar in intensity. They observed lambs showing considerable signs of distress when separated from their mother, for example running around the isolation room, diving at the wall or door, emitting high pitched frantic vocalisations and occasionally even running head first into the wall.

Separation anxiety is more common in animals that are extremely social. A famous method for testing attachment was devised by Mary Ainsworth in 1969, it was named the strange situation test and tested the response of children left alone and separated from their parent. This test was adapted to test the attachment of dogs to their owners by Jozsef Topal et al (1998). Dogs are highly social animals that tend to live in packs and form attachments to ensure their survival and to maintain social contact. When some dogs are left alone they exhibit behaviours to try and bring their owner, who they see as a member of their pack, back to them. Topal’s experiment found that when their owner left the dogs stood by the door when the owner left and behaved enthusiastically when the owner returned.

Separation anxiety has been found to occur when an animal is separated from its mate, particularly in animals who mate for life, for example separation of the male Dwarf Siberian hamster from his mate causes a change in his biochemistry, leading to a change in his behaviour, similar to that shown by humans who are suffering acute psychological stress. Animals who mate for life have also been observed to become depressed after the death of their mate.

Many of the methods used to measure attachments rely on observations which are not always objective as they are subject to the observers opinions and judgement. Some of these studies mentioned could also be subject to the temperament of the animals involved particularly Harlow’s and Topal’s studies. The infant monkeys in Harlow’s experiment were probably highly stressed creatures, a suggestion verified by their behaviour as adults. It was found that these monkeys brought up in isolation with only a surrogate mother were unable to perform adequately as part of a group or raise their own offspring. Also the dogs in the strange situation didn’t demonstrate any extreme reactions so it may have been difficult for the observers to record any significant behaviour. If comparing the dog’s reactions in Topal’s study to the reaction of the lamb in Jenson & Tolman’s study one could be forgiven for concluding that the dogs didn’t display anything that could classify them as having a strong emotional attachment to their owner, even though it is widely accepted that dogs do form strong attachments to their owners.

The essay set out to answer the question ‘how can we tell if an animal is emotionally attached to someone or something?’ This was done by introducing the concept of attachment, exploring studies that measured attachment and evaluating these studies in terms of the methods used and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results. The essay introduced ways in which attachment could be measured effectively by the evaluation of other significant studies in this area. So, in answer to the question, we can tell if an animal is emotionally attached to something or someone by separating it from the attachment figure and measuring the response. This of course leads to problems of distinction, which was addressed concerning Topal’s study. Preference tests and using the attachment figure as a safe base are also useful indicators of attachment.

References

Cairns, R. B. (1979). Social Development the origins and plasticity of interchanges. USA: W. H. Freeman and Company
Hafes, E. S. E (ed). (1962). The Behaviour of Domestic Animals. USA: Williams and Wilkins Company.
Halliday, TR. Slater, PJB (eds). (1983). Animal Behaviour. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13, 673-685.
Hess, E. H. (1958). Imprinting in animals. Scientific American, 198, 82.
Topal, J., Miklosi, A., Csanyi, V., & Doka, A. (1998). attachment behaviour in dogs (Canis Familiaris): A new application of Ainsworth’s (1969) strange situation test. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112, 219-229.

The text reported that after the death of the female monkey her son sat beside his mother’s body holding her hand and whimpering. It states that the juvenile monkey withdrew from the troop and refused food, he died three weeks after his mother, one observer, Goodall, stated that the chimp “died of grief”.

This suggests that the intensity of attachment isn’t affected by the method the infant gains proximity to the parent.