Harry%20Harlow

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Harry Harlow

• A theorist
• exploring
• the
• Early Years

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Harry Harlow The Man Behind the Experiment

• Harry Harlow is a psychologist who received a
  B.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
• University of Wisconsin, where he established a
  Psychology Primate Laboratory.
• He began to study the different mannerisms of
  love.
• This experiment may have been derived from
  Harlows own experience as an infant as he was
  often alienated from his mother.

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Harry Harlow (1905-1981)

• He believed by studying primates, psychologists
  would gain a better understanding of human
  behaviour.
• He believed infants formed an attachment to those
  who provided them with nourishment (food).

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• So he designed an experiment to find the answer
  to this important question
• Which urge is stronger
• the need for love
• or the satisfaction of physical needs
  (specifically, food)?

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The Surrogate Mother Experiment
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The Surrogate Mother experiment

• He used rhesus monkeys because
• their similarities to human infants behaviours
  with their mothers (for example, clinging,
  language learning, nursing)
• He removed the young monkeys from their mothers
  before they had a chance to bond and kept them
  isolated

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The mothers

• The monkeys were kept in a cage with two
  mothers, both made of a wire mesh.
• Mother 1
• Covered with a tan coloured terry cloth (very
  soft and comfortable)
• Mother 2
• the other offered food in the form of a bottle
  from its breast area, but only a wired frame .
• Both mothers were warmed with radiant heat.

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Observations

• The monkeys preferred the cloth mother, even
  though she did not provide food.
• They spent significantly more time with the cloth
  mother.
• Monkeys would go to the wire mother for food, but
  always returned to cloth mother.
• When they were anxious, the monkeys would cling
  to the cloth mother.
• The monkey would rather stay with the cloth
  mother for comfort rather than the wire mother
  for food.

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Video

• Food or security?

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Conclusions

• Infants depend on their caregivers for more than
  just their physical needs meeting emotional
  needs is crucial for attachment.
• Children in early years would expect a warm and
  caring mother, similarly to the cloth mother.
• Monkeys that did not receive affection early in
  life often experienced psychological problems
  later on (such as misdirected aggression or
  abusive mothers).

VIDEO Watch 1.24 minutes)
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Conclusions

• When the cloth mother was removed
• the monkeys were frantic.
• After it was given back, their connection
  intensified.
• Children need their mothers comfort like in the
  experiment.
• Once children are attached to their mother, they
  cant live without her.

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Video

• Scaring the monkey Intensifying Love

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main IDEAS

• Harlows findings
• disproved predictions by reinforcement theorists
  that love is a secondary or a derived drive
  associated with the reduction of hunger/thirst.
• Findings and The Study of Love
• Staying Power of Love- Proved this by removing
  some infants from their cloth surrogates for five
  months.
• The reunion of those monkeys revealed that
  deprivation has intensified the tie to the
  mother.
• Contact comfort could be provided by either
  mother or father.
• This idea is widely accepted now, but was
  revolutionary in the time that Harlow lived.
• He stated that nursing strengthened the
  mother-child bond because of the intimate body
  contact that it provided.

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Impact of Early Years in the Long Term

• Children Harlow's research,
• insight on behaviours of abused children,
• improved methods of giving care to
  institutionalized children,
• allowed fathers and adoptive parents to feel
  confident in providing parental care.
• Many studies that followed have offered
  evidence
• that the attachment of human children
  to their caregivers
  goes far beyond a desire for
  biological needs to be fulfilled.
• Children, just like monkeys, would also turn to
  their mother for comfort and
  security.
• If they are left by themselves they might not
  feel comfortable and safe and start to scream or
  cry.

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Theory Application to Family Society

• Social isolation rendered by infants from their
  mothers can cause them to behave socially
  incompetent in the future.
• Affection towards children is not merely a
  sentimental gesture it serves many
  purposes for normal childhood development.
• More attention should be devoted to the
• experimental research of love.
• Earliest mother-child attachment data makes
  it obvious that contact
  comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance
  in the development of the
  affection response.
• In society there is a great importance of
  emotional support, affection,
  and love in the development of children.

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THE END