Monkey Love Experiments Summary

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.

One specific study in which Harlow is cited was done by two researchers by the names of Eidelman and Feldman. They examined how crucial it is that premature infants receive an appropriate amount of skin-to-skin contact. Without proper contact, (also called Kangaroo care) premature babies are more at risk of death and life-altering illness. This is quite a recent finding, and it most definitely applies to life today when it comes to giving all infants the best care possible to fit their needs. Another way that the study influences life today is how impactful the power of touch really is. When trying to establish a bond with someone, physical contact could lead the way to an unbreakable emotional bond. But how much is too much? Everyone has different needs, and Harlow’s findings show us that while all living things are unique, we all have relatively similar things that must be done in order to achieve the healthiest emotional connection between anyone.

In Harlow's experiments, the baby monkeys would be put into a strange new room and when they had their mothers

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

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

In Money Love, Lauren Slater explores the importance of life. Whether it be animal life of human life, each are proven to be equal, but in different ways. In the chapter, Slater even questions whether her daughter’s life is more important than a monkey’s, along with the human population in general. There is a part to humans that makes us much more likely to value our own lives over an animals’. The question is: is there really more value to a human’s life?

Harlow’s research elucidates and analyzes emotional and social development among infants when presented with stress and/or fear. “One function of the real mother, human or subhuman, and presumably of a mother surrogate, is to provide a haven of safety for the infants in times of fear or danger“ (Harlow & Zimmerman, 503). As the former experiment showed, both surrogate mothers were available at all times during this trial. Once presented with emotional stress, an extensive percentage of the test subjects hastily rushed to the cloth mother, regardless

Scopes Trial, or the Monkey Trials, was a trial about teaching Darwin’s Evolution Theory in public schools (ushistory.org).

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

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.

In his drunken self-conscience the truth was released. He began to fathom the underlying details that he couldn’t pick up from his time with the monkeys earlier. Still trying to hold on to thoughts put into his mind, “He mistook each infant monkey for a beloved soul. In that way the nightmare was confusing” (Millet 314). As you can see it is still in his conception not to believe himself that what he was doing was wrong. This is a battle between his self-conscience and what he was taught to believe. Finally, actuality kicked in, “He saw each infant in the heart of its mother, precious, unique, held so close because the mother was willing to die for it.” (314). What Harlow saw was the absolute certainty of what his inner being was desperately attempting to communicate to him. It was that he was wrong. The test subjects before him were real living things just like himself.

Through these experiments, Harlow separated the monkeys from their mothers and substituted a fake, surrogate mother that would live with the baby monkeys (Cherry, 2016). The fake mothers were artificial and made out of wire with some of them having a cloth covering the wire and some with milk to feed the monkeys (New World Encyclopedia, 2014). The importance of these experiments was to look at and understand love which Harlow defined as, “satisfaction of needs and drives such as hunger and thirst” (New World Encyclopedia). It was thought to be that the maternal bond between a mother and their child began through feeding (New World Encyclopedia, 2014). Therefore, Harlow wanted to see if putting an artificial monkey with a bottle of milk would make the monkey more attracted to that mother over a monkey that was just wire or covered with a blanket.

When the monkeys were dropped to the chamber, the monkeys would come out totally abnormal. Harlow concluded that we live because of food, oxygen and relationships with others. At first, the monkeys were very social animals; but once placed in the chamber, then they came out unsocial. In addition, these animals weren’t able to establish relationships with the other monkeys. The monkeys were loner and isolate from the group. Isolation was very hard to reverse. The monkeys needed a lot of interaction to help them come back to normal social monkeys. They introduce a baby monkey as a therapist. Because the baby monkey was clingy, it wants to cling to the isolated monkey. The isolate monkey realizes that the aby didn’t pose a threat to him and that it just wants to be its friend. The monkeys that were in isolation for a longer time need to be warm up slowly. Allowing the presence of other monkey first. Then, the monkeys were slowly introducing to the therapy monkeys. These monkeys had a large impact on many individuals. It shows that each individual has different ways of coping or even experience grief. It also showed that with a therapy, one could come back to

Primates have very defined parenting habits when compared to some other animals in the mammal classification. For starters parents in the primate category show a large amount of investment in their offspring that is unparalleled by other species in the mammal category. Some primates even go as far to show family qualities, where a father has a part in raising a child, where as in other mammal it is usually left up to the mother alone to take care and provide for a child. Scientist and Psychologist Harry Harlow conducted a study to examine the level of bond that is created in a primate mother/child relationship. His studies found that there is a strong need for primate children to have the physical and emotional bond of their mothers, and this bond is crucial for development.

Moore conducted 30 studies including 1,925 mothers and their babies. The study showed that the babies interacted more with their mothers, stayed warmer and cried less. These babies were more likely to be breastfed and to breastfeed for longer, if they had early skin-to-skin contact. These babies were also more likely to have a good early relationship with their mother, but that is difficult to measure. There was another study conducted with eleven women, their ages vary from 23 to 38. All of these women are having a cesarean birth. Of these eleven women there are eleven babies. The babies took between five to eight minutes to achieve skin-to-skin contact with their mother; and the duration of the time was between 12 to 62 minutes. The main theme that came from this experiment was “mutual caregiving.’ The term ‘mutual caregiving’ refers to the infant 's deep emotional connection to its primary caregiver, which is often the mother. This is a tie that bonds them together and when the infant is in contact with the caregiver the infant will feel joy, comfort and safety. In rodent studies, the pups who had the least attentive contact from their mothers were the ones whose health and