L5 Harlow Rhesus monkey attachment

2. Developmental Psychology

Harlow (1958) study

Emotion over physiological needs with Rhesus monkeys

Harlow’s contact comfort hypothesis: AIm

To investigate whether provision of physiological needs (food) or contact comfort (emotion) is more important in the formation of attachment

Harlow’s contact comfort hypothesis: Research design

Experimental research

Harlow’s contact comfort hypothesis: IV

Provision of food by either a cloth or wire surrogate mother

Harlow’s contact comfort hypothesis: DV

Amount of time spent with the cloth mother and with the wire mother

Harlow’s procedure

8 newborn rhesus monkeys separated after birth

• x4 cages where the wire mother had a milk bottle and cloth mother did not

• x4 cages where the cloth mother had a milk bottle and wire mother did not

Harlow’s data

Objective data: fact based

Quantitative data: numbers - time spent with surrogate

Harlow’s findings

Rhesus monkeys spent more time with their contact comfort surrogate than their wire surrogate, regardless of which one provided food

Harlow’s conclusion

In Rhesus monkey contact comfort is more important than feeding in the formation of the infant/mother attachment bond

Critisms of Harlow’s research: Validity

Low validity - monkeys were taken out of their natural environment, any behaviours displayed may be atypical

Critisms of Harlow’s research: Generalisability

Research findings from monkeys cannot be generalised to humans

Privation

Never forming an attachment bond

Critisms of Harlow’s research: Animal ethics

• Psychology pain was caused by depriving the babies of their mothers and placing them in stressful situations

• Never formed attachment and become aggressive

• Exhibited problems interacting with other monkeys

Contributions of Harlow’s study to psychology

• Provided evidence of importance of contact comfort in attachment formation

• Experimental based data in support of Bowlby’s attachment theory as monkeys never formed attachment and grew to become aggressive and problems interacting with other monkeys