I had known about the surrogate mother experiments, the experiments in which American psychologist Harry Harlow separated young rhesus monkeys from their mothers in order to demonstrate the importance of caregiving in cognitive development. But I didn't know the exact importance of his work.
Harlow took rhesus infants away from their mothers and replaced the mothers with two fake ones: one made of wire (hard) and the other made of terrycloth (soft). Anyone would reasonably assume that the monkeys would cling to the terrycloth mother because of their softness. So for balance, Harlow put food near the hard mother and didn't put anything near the soft mother. This way, one would really find out if the monkeys cared more about food or comfort. (He also switched the roles of the mothers in another experiment.)
The results weren't even close: the rhesus monkeys spent an overwhelming amount of time with the soft mother, regardless of whether she had food or not. And whenever there was a frightening sound nearby, the monkeys automatically clung to the soft mother.
So what does this prove (and disprove)? Up until that time, the behaviorist view was that feeding was the most important factor of the mother-child relationship. But as clearly shown, close body contact strengthened this bond. In addition, it was thought that holding a child too much would spoil him, which is also not true.
A lot of people vehemently criticize Harlow for his unethical work, because he separated the animals at such an early age. But he did help advance psychological studies away from behaviorism. Besides, the Little Albert experiment (conducted by John B. Watson, the leader of the behaviorist movement) involved a human child and that one was much worse, even though it was kinda funny.
0 comments:
Post a Comment