Harlow's Monkey Experiment

Sixteen baby monkeys were used, four in four different condition. One where there was a cage containing a wire mother producing milk and a towelling mother with no milk. Second, with a cage containing a wire mother producing no milk and the towel mother procuring milk. Third, with a cage containing a wire mother producing milk and fourth, with a cage containing a towelling mother producing milk. He then recorded the amount of time spent with

Perhaps the most influential explanation of attachment was presented by John Bowlby who began developing his ideas in the 1940s. Bowlby was commissioned by the World Health Organisation to investigate whether young children were likely to be harmed if they are separated from their mothers in the early years. (Hayes, 1996). Bowlby (1951) reported that infants possesses an innate need to attach to one main attachment figure (this was usually the mother). According to Hayes (1996), this is a special relationship which is qualitatively different from the relationship they form with any other kind of person. He described this as the process of monotropy; however, Bowlby did not deny that babies formed lots of attachments. (Bailey et al. 2008).

John Bowlby developed his Attachment Theory to examine and explore the contextual relationships between a child and their caregiver and their behavioral repercussions. He describes it is “a way of conceptualizing the propensity of human beings to make strong affectional bonds to particular others and of explaining the many forms of emotional distress and personality disturbance, including anxiety, anger, depression, and emotional detachment, to which unwilling separation and loss give rise” (Bowlby, 1979, p. 127). An infant’s attachment to their primary caregiver establishes a sense of security, through protection, so the infant is able to explore the world with confidence and without threat and risk. During a child’s

Bowlby’s attachment theory has greatly influenced practice. His theory of attachment explains the importance of having a figure that the child shares a strong bond with. Having an attachment can significantly support a child’s development as Barbara Woods suggests that “his theory of attachment proposed that attachment is innate in both infants and mothers, and that the formation of this attachment is crucial for the infants development” Wood, B (2001, p.53). Bowlby believed that forming an attachment will help a child develop in all areas e.g. emotionally, physical and mentally. However if they did not form an attachment in the sensitive period, the child may have issues or problems in their cognitive, emotional and social development.

In the 1950’s, Harlow conducted a study using monkeys and surrogate mothers made of artificial materials. He did various tests with the monkeys in which eight monkeys were assigned to either a cloth or wire mother. Both surrogate mothers fed their monkeys, provided heat and had the same shape. The only difference was what they were

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

This paper aims to study the traits of non-human primates. By observing two types of primates including Common Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri sciureus) and Western Gorillas (Gorilla Gorillas), I try to find out their characteristics, pattern of their behavior, and differences between these two primate species. Especially, characteristics and behavior such as social interaction, food acquisition and intelligence will be discussed and compared in this paper. In order to enhance the persuasiveness of my observation, I recorded and examined at least 25 distinct characteristics of both Common Squirrel Monkeys and Western Gorillas. It is also helpful for me to compare these two primates. Apart from exploring the primates’ traits and differentiation between them, this paper will discuss the effects of captivity. How being in captivity and on display in a zoo would influence their behaviors and emotions? The observation was a great success and I have successfully derived with a hypothesis base on our observing data. The ultimate goal of this paper is arousing humans’ awareness of the importance of studying primates.

In the article “Stop Brain Tests on Primates” discusses use of primates in cruel types of experiments. The article states that researchers use to study and test experiments on primates because they are closer to our own dna than any other animal. Although many other animal are used for testing should primates that can think and reason should they be used for experiments.

“Non-human primates, due to their level of intelligence when compared to other animals, and also due to their evolutionary closeness to man are maintained in several types of captive facilities like laboratories, zoological parks, animal circuses and conservation breeding centres” (Mallapur 2005). Non-human primates are the closes species to human-kind compared to others. The intelligence they contain and their relatively comparable behaviors they have with human-kind make them a fascinating study. They are kept for observation and research; but many of the enclosure sceneries evoke abnormal behavior patterns among non-human primates. Maintaining a satisfied non-human primate in captivity can be challenging.

The captivity of primates in zoos can be viewed as maltreatment by animal welfare organizations since confining them in such establishments is going against their rights to be liberated and it may cause some unwanted stress, yet zoos provide various enrichment programs, medicinal assistance, scheduled meals that are appropriate for the primate’s diet, and conservation of the said animal. Primate captivity in zoos can be regarded as both moral and unethical for it imprisons primates, however, as their natural habitat dwindles, zoos also preserve primate population through captive breeding. Furthermore, zoos simultaneously deform the lives of the primates, garner sympathetic reactions from humans for these creatures, and inform

In the middle of the twentieth century, Harry and Margaret Harlow began to study the effects of body contact in terms of developmental attachment. Their breakthrough experiments involved infant monkeys separated from their mother near birth and raised in cages with two surrogate mothers: one a wire cylinder and the other wrapped in terry cloth. After varying such details as location of the feeding bottle, rocking, and warmth, the Harlows were startled to find that the monkeys bonded much more closely to the cloth mother, regardless of whether or not "she" provided the food. (Myers, 2011, pp. 149-151). In parallel to Harlow's monkeys was Victor, found in the forests of France in 1800, when he became the first feral child to be successfully restored to society as well as scientifically studied by Parisian doctor Jean Marc Itard. Followed by children of many ages hailing from the abandoned flats of the Ukraine to the urbanized and bustling streets of Los Angeles, CA, feral children were defined by their lack of human care, usually because of abusive or irresponsible parents. Such isolation from their own society often resulted in resorting to animals, especially dogs, for love and warmth, and to wild, abnormal behavior. None were able to completely and certainly bounce back from their cruel circumstances, a fact shown in their lack of humanity, as Itard defined it, in one of two areas: emotional empathy or liguistic communication. ("Wild Child The Story Of Feral Children

Precise information is derived from these observations due to the scientific fact that infant monkeys and human infants “exhibit no fundamental differences“. Harlow’s research primarily revolved around the study of infant rhesus monkeys and their level of desire to bond with surrogate mother monkeys. Two surrogate mothers were equally available to each baby monkey. Observation of tolerance was recorded as each monkey passably chose between a welded-wire surrogate mother and a surrogate mother covered with terry cloth. Results showed that an equal number of monkeys fed from each of the surrogate mothers, however, they spent more time with the cloth mother as they would climb and cling to her. These results significantly disclose the resemblance between humans and monkeys because human infants also covet soft and cuddly toys, blankets, apparel, stuffed animals, etc.

Further into the research when the terry cloth surrogate got taken out of the cage the monkeys would become highly distressed. The findings of Harlow’s research proved that Bowlbys contention was right, the infant parent bond was based on inmate tendencies and not cupboard love, as when the surrogate mother was placed in the cage with no milk the babies would still be attached. Harlow’s study and research went on for 20 years in which the experiments took on a disturbing unethical approach. He started breeding monkeys and keeping them in separate cages with no visual or physical access to the outside world, ‘when the isolation-reared monkeys grew up, they developed into highly socially disturbed adults” (Discovering Psychology, chapter 5, pg. 209). Influenced by human attachment to abusive parents Harlow wanted to find out if an abusive surrogate would break the attachment, a nasty surrogate mum was used and a blast of cold air from the surrogate was used, violent enough to throw the baby monkey against the bars of the cage. ‘Despite this abuse, the baby monkeys continued to cling and maintain proximity to their monstrously abusive surrogate mother’ (Discovering

During the 1960s, you created various controversial experiments regarding the basis of love and affection by showing the catastrophic effects of depriving young monkeys from their mothers. Your experiments were quite unethical and devastatingly cruel, but overall it gave science a fundamental base for understanding child development. In your experiment you constructed two surrogate mothers, one made out of wire who dispensed milk, and the other who was also made out of wire but covered with soft terry cloth. Your observation was that the young monkeys would choose the cloth mother over the mother who provided food, but my question to you is why, instead of using primates, why did you not use less complex organisms? And if you had already collected