Animal Studies Harlow

Question 1

What is contact comfort?

Answer 1

Test of ‘cupboard love’ theory, that babies love mothers because they feed them

Question 2

Procedure (1958)

Answer 2

• infant rhesus monkeys in cages with surrogate mothers: one provided milk but no comfort (body of exposed wire), and the other providing comfort but no food (cloth cover)
• time spent with each mother recorded

Question 3

Findings

Answer 3

• spent most time with ‘cloth mother’ only visiting ‘food mother’ when they needed to eat - return to cloth
• follow up studies - maternal deprivation from studies led to permanent social disorders in the monkeys as adults - difficulty mating behavior and raising offspring

Question 4

Conclusion

Answer 4

Reject ‘cupboard love’ theory as monkeys have biological (nature) need for physical contact - comfort over food

Question 5

AO3 Strength - point

Answer 5

Research into attachment theory has good real life application to social core settings

Question 6

AO3 Strength - evidence

Answer 6

Social workers understand risk factors in child abuse and maternal deprivation. Helped improve treatment of captive animals - importance of attachment figures and breeding programmes

Question 7

AO3 Limitation - point

Answer 7

Issues of animal extrapolation

Question 8

AO3 Limitation - evidence

Answer 8

Based off monkeys - greater generalizability than Lorenz as monkeys closer to humans than birds - but still non-human brains to humans