AO3 - Harlow

• A strength of Harlow's research is that it has practical applications. The principles of the research that contact comfort is most important in forming an attachment has been used in the real world to highlight risk factors and find prevention strategies for poor human attachments. His findings have been used by social workers and clinical psychologists in understanding that a lack of comfort may be a risk factor in development, allowing them to intervene to prevent poor outcomes. Therefore, Harlow's research is an important part of applied psychology when explaining formation of attachments.
• However, Harlow's research can be criticised for animal bias. This is because it uses rhesus monkeys to investigate attachment. This is a potential problem because human attachment behaviour may be more complex than animal attachment behaviour as human emotions are more sophisticated to their infants than animals. Therefore making it difficult to extrapolate the findings to human attachments, lowering the external validity of Harlow's research into formation of attachment.
• A criticism of Harlow's study is that it raises ethical issues due to the harm inflicted on the monkeys. They suffered greatly as a result of Harlow's procedures and were frightened, had emotional/social issues in later life and some even died. Limiting Harlow's research into attachment in animals.