Animal studies of attachment- HARLOW

Question 1

AO3 - what are the benefits of Harlows research?

Answer 1

1. changed the way zoos are designed and the care of the animals ( zoos should ensure animals have opportunities to form attachments)
2. provided valuable insight into attachment as at the time there was a dominant belief that attachment was related to physical rather than emotional care
3. research influenced the work of John Bowlby
4. helped social workers to understand risk factors in child neglect and abuse
5. vital in convincing people about the importance of emotional care in hospitals and children’s homes

Question 2

AO3 - why was Harlow’s work criticised?

Answer 2

1. seen as unnecessarily cruel
2. limited value in attempting to understand the effect of deprivation and human infants
3. created a sense of anxiety within female monkeys, which had implications once they became parents = so neurotic they would smash their infants face into the floor and rub it back and fourth
4. ethical issues- psychological harm = difficult mating and forming secure attachments
   - emotional harm = when monkeys were placed with normal monkeys they sat huddled with fear

Question 3

AO1 - what is the procedure?

Answer 3

• 16 monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth and placed in cages with a wired mother and one covered in soft terry-towelling cloth
• 8 of the monkeys could get milk from wire mother
• 8 of the monkeys could get milk from the cloth mother

Question 4

AO1 - what were the results?

Answer 4

• both monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother
• infants would only;y go to the wire mother when hungry, once fed they would go back to the cloth mother
• frightening objects placed in a cage the infant would go to the cloth mother

Question 5

AO1 - what was the differences between the monkeys who had grown up with surrogate mothers and those with normal mothers?

Answer 5

• much timider
• didn’t know how to act with other monkeys
• easily bullied
• wouldn’t stand up for themselves
• difficulty with mating
• females were inadequate mothers

Question 6

AO1 - what was Harlow’s conclusion?

Answer 6

• contact comfort was more important than food in the formation of attachments
• early maternal deprivation leads to emotional; damage but its impacts could be revived if an attachment was made before the end of the critical period
• social deprivation rather than maternal deprivation that the monkeys were suffering from -as infant monkeys who spent 20 minutes a day in a playroom with 3 other monkeys they grew up to be normal socially and emotionally

Question 7

AO1 - what was harlows aim?

Answer 7

study mechanism by which newborn rhesus monkeys bond with their mothers

Question 8

AO1 - what was the behavioural theory and how did Harlow contradict it?

Answer 8

the behavioural theory would suggest that an infant would form attachments with a carer that provides food

Harlows explanation stated that attachments develop as a result of the mother providing tactile comfort = infants have an innate need to touch and cling to something for emotional comfort