Attachment: Lesson 9 - Harlow

Question 1

What did Harlow study?

Answer 1

Monkeys

Question 2

What did Harlow aim to demonstrate?

Answer 2

That Attachment was not based on the feeding bind between mother and infant

Question 3

What was the procedure of Harlow?

Answer 3

• Harlow created two wire ‘mothers’ each with a different head
• One wire mother was wrapped in a soft cloth
• Eight infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mother at birth and were studied for a period of 165 days
• They were placed in a cage with the two wire mothers
• Four of the monkeys received milk from the cloth mother, the other four received milk from the exposed wire mother
• During the 165 days, the time that the monkeys spent with each of the two mothers was measured
• Observations were made of the monkey’s responses to being frightened by a mechanical teddy bear, and how they coped with exploring a new room full of unfamiliar toys

Question 4

What were Harlow 1959’s findings?

Answer 4

• All eight monkeys spent most of their time on the soft cloth mother, regardless of whether this mother was the one with the feeding bottle or not
• Those monkeys who were fed by the exposed wire mother only stayed on it long enough to get milk and then returned to the soft cloth mother
• When frightened all monkeys clung to the soft cloth mother and when playing with new objects the monkeys kept one foot on the soft cloth mother
• When placed in a new environment they were not confident enough to explore the room unless the soft cloth mother was with them

Question 5

Evaluation of Harlow (1959) (unethical) (-)

Answer 5

• This study could be considered to be unethical
• The monkeys were removed from their mothers, which would have been very traumatic, and they were then deliberately scared to see how they would react
• This led to long-term emotional harm, when these monkeys were older and encountered other monkeys they either froze or fled
• They also had difficulty caring for their own young (did not cradle them) as they had not been cared for themselves

Question 6

Evaluation of Harlow (1959) (extrapolating results to infants) (-)

Answer 6

• It is problematic to extrapolate the findings from this study to attachment in human infants
• What applies to a non-human species does not necessarily apply to human infants
• Humans are physiologically very different from monkeys as well as having several other influences that monkeys do not have, such as culture, society, peers, upbringing etc
• Furthermore, the bond between human infants and their attachment figures is far more complex, for instance, there are several different types of attachment styles that human infants can have (e.g. secure, avoidant, resistant)