Harlow

Question 1

Aim

Answer 1

To investigate whether food or comfort is more important in the formation of attachments

Question 2

Method

Answer 2

Lab experiment

Question 3

Procedure

Answer 3

• 16 baby rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers at birth and bought uk in cages
• the cages contained surrogate mothers- a wire mother who provided food and a cloth mother without milk who provided comfort
• the amount of time spent with each mother was recorded
• the monkeys were frightened with a loud noise to test which monkey they preferred when stressed
• the long term effects were recorded such as sociability and relationships to their future offsprings

Question 4

Findings

Answer 4

• monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother
• when frightened the monkeys would go to the cloth mother
• the monkeys later in life had emotional damage such as being much more shy being easily bullied difficulty mating and females being inadequate mothers when they were older

Question 5

Conclusion

Answer 5

Contact comfort is the most important factor when forming an attachment

Question 6

AO3

Answer 6

Harlow research can be criticized for animal bias because it used animals to investigate attachment . This is a problem because human behavior may be more complex than animal attachment behavior as human emotions are more sophisticated towards their offspring than animals. Therefore there are issues with extrapolating the findings of harmless research into attachment