Harlow’s Monkeys

• The importance of contact.

  Harlow observed newborns kept alone in bare cage. Those who didn't have a something soft like a cloth often died unlike those who had a soft object.
• Harlow tested the idea that a soft object serves some of the functions of a mother. A money was put in a box with a wire mother who dispensed milk and a cloth mother who dispensed milk. I6 monkeys were used.
• The baby monkeys cuddled the cloth -covered mother in preference to the plain - wire mother and sought comfort from the cloth mother when frightened by a noisy mechanic teddy bear regardless of which mother dispensed milk. This showed that contact comfort was of more importance to the moneys than food when it came to attachment behaviour.
• Maternally deprived moneys as adults 1/2

  Harlow followed the moneys who were deprived of a real mother (wire mother) into adulthood to see if the early maternal deprivation had a long term effect. The researchers found that moneys with a wire mother were dysfunctional. However even those who had cloth mothers didn't develop normal social behaviours.
• Maternally deprived moneys as adults 2/2

  These deprived monkeys were more aggressive & less sociable than other monkeys & they bred less often than is typical of monkeys; being unskilled at mating. When they became mothers, some neglected their young, attacked their children or even killed them.
• The critical period for normal development

  Harlow concluded that there was a critical period for attachment formation - a mother had to be introduced to a young monkey within 10 days for an attachment to form. After this attachment was impossible & the damage done by early maternal deprivation was irreversible.