The Well of Despair
Pragya Chaturvedi
Piedmont Governor’s School for Mathematics, Science, and Technology
The Well of Despair
Harry Harlow conducted experiments on rhesus monkeys to research the nature of maternal love (“Harry Harlow,” 2017). He used maternal deprivation and social isolation experiments to do so. The first experiment he conducted was to find out what kind of maternal care the monkeys needed to be normal; Harlow raised the infant monkeys with artificial mothers to see how different types of mothers would affect the monkeys’ growth and reaction. He used a variety of mothers to research the different preferences, and he thought that the ideal mother was "a mother, soft, warm, and tender, a mother with infinite patience, a mother available 24 hours a day" (Slater, 2008, n.pag.). He used two mothers in this experiment: one was made out of terrycloth and the other one was made out of wire (“Harry Harlow,” 2017). The wire mother provided the monkeys with the materials the babies needed to survive, like milk and food. On
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He used equipment like the “rape rack,” “iron maidens,” and “the well of despair” which caused emotional trauma to the infants (“Harry Harlow,” 2017). “Rape rack” was a forced mating device; the mothers who had their baby using this device were abusive to their children. These mothers were unable to form any kind of bond to their children because they were deprived of that themselves. “Iron maidens” were the surrogate mothers that tormented the monkeys by shooting sharp spikes, and cold air that was so forceful that the monkeys were thrown across the cages, clinging and screaming (Slater, 2004). Lastly, “well of despair” was where the monkeys were left in dark chambers for up to a year (“Harry Harlow,” 2017). The infants that were left in isolation were very disturbed. Harlow tried very hard to reverse the depression using multiple kinds of therapy, but they all failed to
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
Harry and Margaret Harlow’s experiment was mostly centered on social development, which the sole stars of the experiment: Rhesus Monkeys. A significant amount of observations were found in the experiment. These directly related themselves to the limited social contact of humans. It was specifically aimed toward the cases of isolated and feral children. In these experiments, or observations, it is demonstrated that human or mother contact is necessary to the development of a child.
The means of the experiment were to document his findings on the treatment of the little boy, the way Freud carried out the experiment was through the father of the boy; Max Graf who was a friend of Freud and also a supporter of Freud’s theories; sending letter to Freud of the conversations that took place between father and son plus the observations of the boys behaviour. The main problem with this study is that Freud had only met Hans on a few occasions which meant that the boy’s father was conducting the real treatment which was based on the replies Freud gave.
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
Harry Wills, also known as The Black Panther in boxing, has inspired many colored youths to participate in sports themselves. Currently, he has been unable to fight in the heavyweight title, and he probably never will get the chance to because dangerous black men like him are prohibited from doing so. Nobody can really prove that Wills is the best boxer because he is unable to fight against the white race, but he wins just about every match he gets into with the colored. Full of excuses, George Dempsey, was the white boxing legend who could not fight against Harry Wills even though over 500 newspaper polls estimated that Harry would win. Boxing has become very popular with all Americans, but racial prejudice remains, so it will be difficult
Using my Monkey Studies, when I separated infant monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth, then
As a result, all of the monkeys’ corpses were buried and a chemical was released, killing everything in the facility to prevent
John William Gilbert was born at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1842. His parents were William James Gilbert and Eleanor Gilbert; both parents were born in England and they were married on 23rd April 1826. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert and their one-year-old daughter, Eleanor immigrated to Canada in 1830. His father’s occupation was described as 'labourer', as declared on his immigration application. John's only sister, Eleanor was born in England in 1829 and his four older brothers, William, Francis, James and Charles were born in Canada. On settling into Canadian life, John Gilbert's father commenced working on Public Projects as a contractor. Between 1837-1838, Canada experienced major unrest in many areas of the country which soon descended into
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.
At the time, it was said that love began as a feeding bond with the mother and applied by extension to other family members. Other theories claimed that humans and other social animals lived in organized societies simply to help with sexual contact. Starting in 1957, Harlow worked with rhesus monkeys. The reason behind why he chose this specific type of breed was because the monkeys that they were utilizing were more mature at birth than humans, but like human babies show a range of emotions and needed to be nursed. During the experimentations, he took infant monkeys away from their real mothers and gave them instead two artificial mothers. One of the models were made
Historian and Modern Archaeologist Neville Thompson is put in charge of the National Committee of World War II Preservation. Neville is sent to Germany to negotiate with a man who own the land of a possible forgotten concentration camp. The man wants to turn the entire land into a parking lot Neville job is to find proof that the land was once a concentration camp so the land can be given landmark status and can be properly explored. While Neville conducts his search he find a journal and letters belonging to Elizabeth Schmidt who father was Commandant of the concentration camp. Neville interested in the story research and finds that Elizabeth is still alive in American. Neville returns to America and sets up and interview with Elizabeth who
The studies revealed that the monkeys chose to feed from the uncomfortable wire support first then went on to cling to the comfortable and warm cloth covered support, this revealed that contact comfort was more important than just being fed. These monkeys went onto becoming severely debilitated in their social relationships and also made incapable parents. Bowlby also believed that another important aspect in the development of child rearing is the importance of timing. There is a critical period of bonding between mother and baby which must take place at 6-12 hours after the birth; the contact must take place within that time otherwise attachment risks failure. This belief comes from the ethologists influence of imprinting with young animals primarily goslings.
Dian helped us connect even more to the foreign primates by focusing on the different habits of mother, baby, and adolescent gorillas. Giving each gorilla a name, Fossey helped us almost humanize the animals through her vivid descriptions of their personality and behavior. She showed us that gorilla mothers protect, care for, and discipline their infants. Gorilla babies develop much the same ways humans do; acquiring skills as they age. Adolescents can be just as curious as they are mischievous. Fossey's work helps replace the image of the gorilla as a ferocious animal into one that is kind, gentle, and more human-like that we had never known.