lesson 9- Harlow

Question 1

Harlow (1959)

Answer 1

‘Origins of Love’, sought to demonstrate that mother love/attachment was not based on the feeding bond between mother and infant

Question 2

Procedure

Answer 2

-created two wire mothers each with a different head, one was wrapped in soft cloth
-8 infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mother at birth and studied for a period of 165 days
-placed in cage with the two wire mothers, four of the monkeys received milk from the cloth mother other four received milk from exposed wire mother
-during 165 days the time that monkeys spent with each other with each of the mothers was measured, observations were made of the monkeys responses to being frightened by a mechanical teddy bear, and how they coped with exploring a new room of unfamiliar toys

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

-all 8 monkeys spent most their time on the soft cloth mother regardless of whether this one had the feeding bottle or not
-monkeys fed by exposed wire mother only stayed on long enough to get milk and returned to soft cloth
-when frightened by mechanical teddy bear all monkeys c,uni to soft cloth mother and when playing with new objects 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 4

Long-term effects

Answer 4

-continued to study the monkeys as they grew up, developed abnormally, froze or fled when approached by other monkeys, did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cradle their own babies
-if the monkeys spent time with other monkeys then they could recover but only if this happened before they were 3 months old, have more than 3 months with only a wire mother was something they could not recover from

Question 5

Evaluation (1 strength 3 weakness)

Answer 5

-S&E (1964) also found food is not necessary for attachment, babies attach to people who play with them not feed them, in 39% of cases even though the mother was the one that fed them the baby was more attached to someone else
-unethical, removed from their mothers, very traumatic, deliberately scared to see how they would react, led to long term emotional harm, froze or fled, couldn’t cradle own babies has had not been cared for them self
-problematic to extrapolate findings to human infants, physiologically very different, several other influences monkeys do not have: culture, society, peers, upbringing
-attachment bond between human infants and attachment figures is more complex than in monkeys, several types of attachments