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Discovering Love Dr. Harry Harlow. Akshaya Arjunan. Dr. Harry Harlow (1905 – 1981). A developmental psychologist who, in the mid- 1960s, devoted the majority of his career to the nature of infantile love. Went to Stanford University
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Discovering LoveDr. Harry Harlow Akshaya Arjunan
Dr. Harry Harlow (1905 – 1981) • A developmentalpsychologist who, in the mid- 1960s, devoted the majority of his career to the nature of infantile love. • Went to Stanford University • Conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin • Known for controversial experiments ( one of which included raising monkeys in bare wire cages)
Purpose • Most psychologists agree that your experiences as an infant with closeness, touching, and attachment to your mother has an important influence on your abilities to love. • However, is the infant’s closeness to his/her mother because she provides food for the infant, or because of something called contact comfort?
Propositions • Due to ethical reasons, Dr. Harlow decided to use rhesus monkeys in place of human subjects to run his experiment. • He found that infant monkeys had a peculiar attraction to the soft, cloth covering in the cage – contact comfort.
Method • Two surrogate mothers were built: • 1. A smooth wooden body covered in sponge, rubber, and terry cloth. • 2. A wire mesh shaped about the same as the wooden frame. Both mothers were equipped with a breast that delivered milk and contained a light bulb for warmth.
Experiment # 1 • The mothers were placed in cubicles and eight infant monkeys were randomly assigned to the two groups. • Purpose? • Dr. Harlow was attempting to separate the influence of nursing from the influence of contact comfort on the monkeys’ behavior toward the mother.
Results # 1 • The fulfilling of biological needs such as hunger and thirst was of almost no importance in the monkeys’ choice of a mother. • The time spent with the cloth mother was drastically different than the time spent with the wire mother – despite the fact that both mothers provided equal forms of nourishment.
Experiment # 2 • When children are afraid, they will seek out the comfort of their mothers. • Harlow wanted to find out what would happen when a fearful object was placed in the cage. • How would the monkeys behave?
Results # 2 • Whenever the monkeys found themselves faced with something frightening, they would run to the cloth mother for comfort – even if they received their milk from the wire monkey.
Experiment # 3 • Open- field test • He placed young monkeys in a small, unfamiliar room containing various objects. • He was examining the tendency of young monkeys to adapt to and explore the strange situation with or without the presence of the mother.
Results # 3 • When the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would explore and adventure into the new surroundings. • When the wire mother or no mother was present, the monkeys would freeze with fear and engage in emotional behaviors such as crying, crouching, and thumb sucking.
Experiment # 4 • Dr. Harlow wanted to know if long periods of separation would affect the attachment formed between the monkeys and their mothers. • When the monkeys reached 6 months of age, they were separated for short periods of time, and then reunited.
Results # 4 • After 30 days, the monkeys rushed towards the cloth mother and clutched tightly when they were reunited. • The need for contact comfort was greater than the natural tendency for exploration.
Conclusion • Contact comfort proved to be more important in the development of attachment between infant monkeys and their mothers – more so than the mother’s ability to provide nourishment. • It DISPROVED the theory that the quality of feeding was the driving force behind infant-mother bond – therefore males can participate on equal terms too.
Same for Humans? • It has been shown that greater skin to skin contact between a mother and her young infant enhances attachment. • However, the attachment process is slower (6 months) in humans than in monkeys (first couple days).
Influence on the society • This research has influenced the kind of care we provide for children in orphanages or hospital settings. • Fathers feel more adequate to assume a larger role in the care-giving process. • Enhanced the prospect of adoption because an adoptive parent can odder a child just as much contact comfort as a biological parent. • Adults lacking in social contact experienced everyday life events as more stressful, had a higher risk of high blood pressure, healed from injuries more slowly, and slept more poorly.
Ethical Issues • Do we as humans have the right to subject monkeys (or any other animals) to potentially harmful situations for the sake of research?
Historical Significance - 1958 • It disproved the theory that only mothers would be able to provide for children at a young age because they are the only ones that can provide nourishment – now males can play an equal role.
Videos! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg9QCeA4FJs&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrBrk9DXVk
