Harry Harlow

• What was Harlows Experiment aim?

  To find whether nourishment or contact/comfort explains the reason why attachment is developed and how
• what was the Independent variable for Harlows experiment?

  The type of surrogate mother. the wire mother or the cloth mother
• what was the dependent variable in Harlows experiment?

  The amount of time spent on each surrogate mother
• what is the name of Harlows study?

  the Cloth mother Vs. Wire mother experiment
• what was the sample for Harlows experiment?

  8 infant Rhesus monkeys that were separated from their mothers after being recently being born and kept in isolation
• what materials were used in Harlows experiment?

  There was:

  • A wire mother made of wire and had a baby bottle filled with milk connected to it- providing food
  • a cloth mother made of terrycloth to provide comfort
• what was Harlows method?

  • all baby Rhesus monkeys were placed into a cage containing a wire and a cloth mother. Both inanimate.
  • the Rhesus infants were then watched and studied to see which surrogate they would spend the most time with
  • then a number of fear conditions were introduced
• what were some of Bowlby‘s key findings?

  It was found that in both threatening and non threatening situations, the monkey would say with or immediately return to the cloth mother. unless the baby needed food, it would stay with the cloth mother.

  without a surrogate mother, the babies were scared and would rock as a form of self comfort
• how did Harlows research contribute to psychology?

  it was shown to contribute majorly to the understanding of the need for maternal touch in a child’s development and how imperative it is for a parent-child attachment relationship to begin as early as possible.
• what was an ethical criticism of the study?

  the experiment was unethical due to the treatment of the baby monkeys as they were deprived of maternal care/love and social contact, leading to a number of psychological and physical issues including: reproductive problems, self harm, and monkeys in the experiment were bullied by other monkeys if reunited. making the study breach protection from harm.
• What was a scientific limitation of the study?

  The experiment was limited due to the role of mother surrogates. Because the wire mother provided milk, it was female; meaning that Harlow only tested the need that infants had for mothers and not for other care givers such as fathers.
• what was another criticism of Harlows study?

  The generalisation of results- by using monkeys and generalising the results given by them to the human population, the results cannot truely be used. humans are a different species to monkeys and cannot be expected to behave as the monkeys did in the same situations.
• What‘s one extraneous variable during the experiment? How could it be controlled?

  The environment was artificial and unfamiliar. This could be controlled by the making of a more natural environment