Harlows animal study Flashcards
Describe Harlow’s procedure
Harlow (1958) tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother.
In one experiment, he reared 16 baby monkeys with two wire model ‘mothers’.
In one condition, milk was dispensed by the plain-wire mother whereas in a second condition the milk was dispensed by the cloth-covered mother
Describe the findings of Harlows monkey experiment
The baby monkeys cuddles the cloth-covered mother in preference to the plain-wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth one when frightened (eg. by a noisy mechanical bear) regardless of which mother (cloth-covered or plain-wire) dispensed milk. This showed that contact comfort was of more importance to the monkeys than food when it came to attachment behaviour
Describe the monkey’s behaviour after these maternally-deprived experiments
Harlow also followed the monkeys who had been deprived of a ‘real’ mother into adulthood to see if this early maternal deprivation had a permanent effect.
The monkeys reared with plain-wire mothers only were the most dysfunctional. However, even those reared with a cloth-covered mother did not develop normal social behaviour.
The monkeys were more aggressive and less sociable than other monkeys. They bred/ mated less often than is typical for a monkey, but if they did become mothers, they neglected their young and sometimes attacked them. Some monkeys ended up killing others.
What did Harlow’s experiment show?
The importance of ‘contact comfort’. The study showed that attachment is more than just food.
What did Harlow conclude about the critical period?
Like Lorenz, Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for attachment formation - a mother figure had to be introduced to a young monkey within 90 dats for an attachment to
form. After this time, attachment was impossible and the damage done by early deprivation became irreversible.
Give 1 strength of Harlow’s monkey experiment
Real world applications - His work has theoretical value as it refutes (proved it wrong) ‘cupboard love theory’ - attachment develops as a result of feeding
It helped social workers and clinical psychologists understand that a lack of bonding experience is a risk factor in child development, allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes (Howe 1998)
We also now understand the importance of attachment figures for baby animals in zoos and breeding programmes in the wild
Give 2 limitations of Harlow’s monkey experiment
- Generalisability to humans - Monkeys are more human-like than birds and all mammals share some common attachment behaviours. However, the human brain and human behaviour is still more complex than monkeys. Therefore, it may not be appropriate to generalise Harlow’s findings to humans
- Ethics - the experiment had lasting emotional harm on the monkeys. Monkeys are human-like so suffering would have been extreme. Harlow was also aware that what he was doing was harming the monkeys - ‘iron maidens’ (cloth surrogate mothers)
