Feral Children & Harlow's Monkeys: Psychological Experiments

One of the studies was conducted by Harlow in 1959 who wanted to study the mechanisms by which new-born rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers. He tested the learning theory by comparing attachment behaviour in the monkeys given wire surrogate mother producing milk with those given a soft towelling mother producing no milk.

There were no families, no companions, no grooming, and no nests . There were only cold, hard steel bars and concrete and terror and loneliness that went on for so many years that most chimpanzees would sink into depression, eventually losing their minds . As a result of enduring the terror and pain of having their bodies routinely violated for experiments and the loneliness of their tiny steel and concrete prison cells, many chimpanzees bear lifelong emotional scars . Numerous studies have shown that even long after they’ve been retired from experimentation, many chimpanzees exhibit abnormal behavior indicative of depression and posttraumatic stress . They suffer from symptoms such as social withdrawal, anxiety, and loss of appetite . They pull out their own hair, bite themselves, and pace incessantly . when they were done testing on them they are locked up in cold bars and they are put in small

Dr. Bruce Perry, an incredible psychiatrist, describes some of his many experiences with extremely traumatized children in his novel, “The Boy who was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook”. Throughout this book, Dr. Perry presents just a slight insight into what children all over the world experience: violence, neglect, abuse, starvation. Due to the effects of these harsh realities, many children are viewed as strange or different, but in reality, they are some of the bravest children I’ve ever heard of. Though all of these stories are incredibly remarkable, one of the children that stood out to me the

Alper, L. S. (1993). The Child-Pet Bond. Progress in Self Psychology, 9, 257-270. Retrieved March 13, 2014, from the Progress in Self Psychology database.

Harlow gathered 16 rhesus monkeys, placing some with a cloth covered monkey that did not produce food, and some with a wired monkey that dispensed food. With this presence, it was found that the newborns didn’t die as they had the cloth to cuddle. It was found that the monkeys would rather cuddle the cloth covered monkey rather than the wired one which produced food, just to establish a sense of contact comfort, which was much more important for the attachment of the monkeys. Harlow also followed monkeys which had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother at birth and found the wire mother reared monkeys were dysfunctional but those with the cloth covered one didn’t develop normal social

Harry Harlow 's research on monkey 's support 's Bowlby 's theory of attachment as he investigated ‘the nature of human love and affection ' (Cherry, 2016) through monkeys. This shows Harlow 's experiments demonstrated the importance of early attachments, emotional bonds and how attachment increases a healthy development. Harlow 's experiment consisted of ‘two wired surrogate mothers and an infant monkey separated from their mother hours after birth. One of the wired monkeys had a soft terrycloth around it and the other one only had food attached with to it. ' (Cherry, 2016) This was set up to find out which wired monkey the baby monkeys would be attached to more. Harlow 's study showed that ‘the

“In the course of raising these infants we observed that they all showed a strong attachment to the cheesecloth blankets which were used to cover the wire floors of their cages. Removal of these cloth blankets resulted in violent emotional behavior. These responses were not short-lived; indeed, the emotional disturbance lasted several days, as was indicated by the infant's refusal to work on the standard learning tests that were being conducted at the time” (Harlow, 1959). The infant monkey would become distressed when its comfort blanket, a cheesecloth, was removed so this started the experiment to see if the monkey would prefer a nourishing mother or a comforting mother.

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes but given the nickname “The Monkey Trial”, has been credited as starting the popular legal dispute between evolution and creationism in the court, and its impact in the 20’s was immeasurable.

In 1925, the Scopes "Monkey" Trial captured national interest and the infamous moniker "Trial of the Century" due to William Jennings Bryan serving as part of the prosecution and Clarence Darrow serving as defense counsel to John Scopes with the social divide between science and religion serving as the backdrop, a controversy that has persisted to the modern day. William Jennings Bryan(henceforth Bryan) was well-known to the American people for his political involvement with the Democrat party and his passionate speeches as a Presbyterian. In contrast, Clarence Darrow(henceforth Darrow) was well known for his work as an attorney regarding labor law issues and his work as a defense attorney during the Franks murder trial, a trial that was also called the "Trial of the Century", where he defended Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Between the involvement of these two titanic public figures, the social divide between science and religion only served to stoke the flames of public interest even further. In order to understand why the Scopes “Monkey” Trial was given the infamous moniker “Trial of the Century” and why it captured national interest, I have to discuss the historical context of society's belief

According to the Harlow’s monkey experiment showing to us, that how the attached our relationship as the humans between an infants and parents. This experiment teach us to how healthy relationship parents needs to develop and maintains with children so in the future they do not feel insecure attachment. Based on an experiment, every human being and different types of animals always need a love, comfort, warmth from every relationship. Some people can lives without foods some weeks or several months but those people are given most importance to the human psychology behaviors like thought, feelings, attitudes and values between the children and parents. For example, new born baby already have strong biologically, psychology and physically bonds

The experiment involved separating infant rhesus monkeys from their mother and providing a surrogate made of either soft cloth or wire (Harlow, 1958). The infant monkeys were not physically harmed, but the stress from open-field tests and the effect on attachment is emotionally harmful. This experiment would never be ethical on human children because it involves separating the child from their mother and experimenting with their attachment and love of their parent. It is also questionable if the actions and reactions of the rhesus monkeys can be directly applied to humans. Harlow claims that the bonding and affection responses of the monkeys and humans are the same, yet I believe there should be more research to compare the responses of humans versus those of rhesus monkeys. After all, one cannot apply the actions and responses of dogs to those of cats, even though biologically they too are rather

Harry Harlow’s thorough research on the connection between maternal comfort and rhesus monkeys provides information and knowledge to the reader as an insight into our social and emotional development. In this article, Harlow uses experimental observation of mental and emotional associations of the affectionate ties between the child and the mother. As Harlow says, this is “an instinct incapable of analysis”.

Lorenz (1935) revealed strong bonds with non-humans with first moving objects that they encounter; which was not always with the mother. In precocial species the mobile young animal needs to quickly identify its caregiver and remain close to them for survival. This is known as imprinting. As this happens before any feeding has taken place the study on Rhesus monkeys does not apply in the same way. Firstly Lorenz used goslings which are called precocial; meaning that they quickly develop to move around, and have well developed sense organs.

responsible in creating. A common case amongst zoo animals is that of anxiety. This can be due to several factors in the zoo environment. This includes animals strict diet, the constant attention from zoo goers, lack of companions, and loss of freedom. The animals may be unaware to how they have ended up in their situation, but their instincts know something isn’t right. There have also been cases of depression with zoo animals. Most cases of depression are due to lack of companions or a loss of a companion, if a zoo animal is surrounded by a companion and the companion passes the behavior of the animal changes. For example, in NY Times article Zoo Animals and their Discontent by Alex Halberdtadt he mentions a male gibbon who struggled psychologically, displaying behavior qualities after the passing of his companion,” He ate less, moved less and sometimes refused to go on exhibit.” (paragraph 25 line 9-10). Behaviorist Virga believed the cause to be grief, which happened to last for a quarter of the year. The psychological effect physically caused the animal harm regarding its health. In the wild gibbons live a life with several companions so when one dies, the loss isn’t as tragic or mentally straining on the animal. This affliction zoos have on its animals is correlated to captivity in general.

Then with all of the commotion Antonio calmly got up as if he did not do anything to, again, check on his mother. This time she was not where he had left her, which caused him to react by screaming, “I want my mommy, I want my mommy.” Then James came over and began to do the same thing. It was as if they had lost their security blanket. The other kids went over and began to stare at them as though there were something wrong with them. One of the kids came up to me and said, “Why is he crying like that?” I explained to her that he wanted to be with his mommy, and she responded, “Oh,” and walked away with out a care in the world. This was a clear example of the experiment that (Harlow) ran on the monkeys in 1962. The monkeys were removed from their mother after 8 weeks of being born then placed in a cage with a surrogate mother, one of wire and the other one was made out of terry cloth. They eventually attached them selves to the surrogate mother that was made out of the terrycloth, even though the one that feed them was the one made out of wire. The reason was the comfort in the soft and warmth of the terrycloth, which made them feel safe. Just like Antonio when he held on to his mother’s side. Once Antonio had lost his comfort zone, he felt scared.