The Pros And Cons Of Harry Harlow

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

However, the monkey study was conducted on monkeys and it could be argued that this is not an accurate representation of human attachment. Humans are a lot more complex than animals and so therefore research on animals to study behaviour cannot be applied to human behaviour.

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.

Within this essay, we will study more in depth the behavioral as well as physical traits of two primates at a zoo from their interaction with their peers to their place in the group. This observation would enable us to further understand the possible existing correlation between humans and primates. First, I studied a female chimpanzee with her baby, and then, a dominant male gorilla, in San Francisco Zoo at about noon, on May 23, 2015, for an hour each. Even though they share some similarities such as having a large brain, living for a long time, and being bored in their enclosure, they are still different; when gorillas are the largest, chimpanzees are the smartest. In fact, chimps use tools to catch food, they would not be able to reach

He drew on several different resources which included Harlow’s rhesus monkeys and Lorenz’s (1935) imprinting. John Bowlby’s evolutionary theory had stemmed from Lorenz’s (1935) study of imprinting. Lorenz showed in his research that young ducklings had an innate tendency to attach for survival purposes. Bowlby saw humans being just like animals also having that instinctive nature to attach for survival purposes this gives infants an adaptive advantage to survive. Bowlby also believed that infants had to form an attachment to their caregiver within a specific time frame, this being from birth to 2.5 years old. They would then go on to form several attachments to others at a later stage. If the infant did not form an attachment within the critical time frame then Bowlby believed they would be damaged for life they would go on to become socially, emotionally, intellectually and even physically damaged. Maternal deprivation hypothesis claimed that if the mother and infants attachment was broken in the primary attachment stage then this would also have a severe effect on the infant’s emotional development Bowlby (1951). Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis was mainly based on studies that were conducted in the 1930’s and they were based on children who were brought up in nurseries and

This is his Maternal deprivation hypothesis, which stated the belief that if an infant was unable to build a “warm, intimate, continuous relationship with its mother”, it would then result in having difficulties building relationships with other people and also the risk of behavioural disorders. This hypothesis says that relationships that are discontinuous or where there are separations

I agree that the Harry Harlow study is entirely relevant to life today, useful, and in no way cruel to the monkeys involved. It demonstrates the importance of contact comfort

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.

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

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.

His study involved several young children who had not had maternal care as infants and seemed unable to connect emotionally with their adoptive parents. He remarked that these children appeared to be suffering from “primary affect hunger,” which Levy defined as not only a hunger for affection, but for all the emotions that come with interacting with a mother every day. He asked the question “Is it possible that there results a deficiency disease of the emotional life, comparable to a deficiency of vital nutritional elements within the developing organism?” (Karen, 1998, 17).

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.