harlow - monkeys

• when was harlows study

  1958
• procedure:

  8 rhesus monkeys were caged from infancy with a wire mesh food dispensing surrogate mother and a cloth covered mother

  -harlow measured the amount of time the monkeys spent with each one
• findings?

  -showed attatchment behaviours to the cloth mother when scared

  -showed phobic responses when left alone with the wire, food mother

  = contact comfort is more important than food
• long term effects?

  they did not develop normal social behaviours:

  • more aggressive and less sociable
  • neglected and attacked (sometimes killed) their children

  the wire mothered monkeys were the most severe
• critical period?


  90 days
• AO3 - irl application - theoretical

  -importance of the quality of early relationships for later social development

  -attatchment is a result of contact comfort
• AO3 - irl application - practical

  -social workers understand risk factors in child neglect + abuse so they can prevent it

  -offering attatchment figures for captive monkeys in zoos and breeding programmes
• AO3 - ethical issues


  -monkeys suffered greatly, the species is said to be close enough to humans to generalise the results so their suffering must also be human-like
• AO3 - generalisability

  psychologists disagree that the study can fully be generalised to humans