harlow

• Harlow attachment

  the aim: to investigate whether contact or the provision of food is more important when forming infant- mother attachment in rhesus monkeys
• findings:

  • baby spent more time on cloth monkeys than wire mothers
  • contact comfort more important than recieving food
• limitations:

  • monkeys experienced psychological pain (placed in stressful situations and without their mother
  • can't be generalised to the human population (used monkeys as subjects)
• method

  participants:

  • 8 newborn Rhesus monkeys

  Matierals:

  • surrogate monkey made from rubber-covered block of wood covered in cotton terry cloth
  • made from wire mesh, milk bottle and cages

  Contribution:

  • believed that infants are only attached to mothers because they recieve food (via breastfeeding)
  • supported Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis- monkeys reared apart from their mother suffered social + emotional difficulties late in life
• Method 2

  Procedure:

  • separated at birth from mother
  • newborn monkeys placed in separate cages
  • each cage contained 2 surrogate monkeys
• IV: whether the milk bottle was attached to the cloth covered or wire mesh surrogate
• DV: the time the monkeys spent on surrogate
• Seriation:The ability to arrange a collection of items or situations in a logical series

  e.g. child is provided a variety of objects and asked to order them according to size
• Animism: Tendency of children to believe that any inanimate objects possess life like characteristics, such as feelings + emotions.

  e.g. pretend play doctors + looking after a teddy bear
• Egocentrism: Tendency of children to view situations + events only from their own perspectives, with the belief others will see things from same p.o.v as themselves