Harlow's Animal Study
- Created by: EmilyRoseCotterell
- Created on: 16-01-18 08:52
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- Harlow's animal studies (1959)
- Aim
- 'The Origins of Love'
- to demonstrate that mother love (attachment) was not based on the feeding bond between mother and infant
- Procedure
- Harlow created 2 wire mothers each with a different head
- 1 mother was wrapped in soft cloth and the other just wire
- 8 infant rhesus monkeys studied for 165 days
- for 4 of the monkeys, the milk bottle was on the cloth monkey, for the other the milk bottle was on the wire monkey
- during this time, they measured the amount of time each infant spent with the 2 different mothers
- they also observed the infant monkey's responses when they were frightened for for example by a mechanical teddy - what they go to the cloth or wire monkey?
- Findings
- all 8 monkeys most of their time with the cloth mother whether or not if had the feeding bottle
- monkeys who were fed from the wire mother only spent a short amount of time getting milk and would then return to the cloth mother
- when frightened, all monkeys clung to the cloth mother
- when playing with new objects, the infant monkeys often kept one foot on the cloth mother for reassurance
- Conclusion
- infants do not develop attachment to the person who feeds them but to the person offering contact comfort
- Evaluation
- Unethical
- Untitled
- Unethical
- Long-lasting effects
- Harlow continued to study his monkeys as they grew up and found many consequences of their early attachment experiences
- they developed abnormally even the monkeys who had contact comfort
- socially abnormal
- froze/fled when approached by other monkeys
- sexually abnormal
- did not show normal mating behaviour and did not cradle their own babies
- there is a critical period for these effects
- the motherless monkeys recovered if they spent time with there monkey 'peers' before 3 months old
- they couldn't recover when being with the wire mother for 6 months
- Aim
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