1. Discovering Love Harry Harlow

2. Background on Love Theories
Freudian Theory
Focused on the bond between you and your mother beginning at the first moment of birth is first experience of love.
Focused on oral tendencies
Behaviorist Theory
All human behavior is associated with primary needs.
Examples: Hunger, thirst and avoidance of pain
Because the mom can provide these needs the child becomes attached.

3. Background on Love Theories
Harlow’s Theory
Love and affection are stronger than primary needs.
Most Prevalent Theory
Most psychologists agree that your experiences as an infant with closeness and attachment to your mother have an important influence on your abilities to love later in life.

4. Eight infant monkeys randomly assigned to two groups.
Harlow’s Study
Surrogate mothers placed in separate cubicles and attached to monkeys cage.
Eight infant monkeys randomly assigned to two groups.
One group had Cloth mother equipped with a feeder.
Second group had wire mother equipped with a feeder.
Amount of time they spent in direct contact with each mother was recorded for the first five months of their lives.

5. Cloth Mother:
Smooth wooden body
covered in sponge rubber
and terry cloth.
Wire Mother:
Made out of wire mesh and
considered by Harlow to
have no contact comfort.

6. Results
After the first few days all the monkeys, regardless of which mother had the milk, were spending nearly all their time each day on the cloth mother.
Monkeys being fed by wire mother only left the cloth mother for a short time to get food.
This demonstrated the importance of contact comfort.

7. After this study Harlow wanted to explore the effects of attachment and contact comfort in greater detail.
Harlow placed various objects in the cage that would cause a fearful reaction. (Wind up drum playing toy bear)
Responses of the monkeys were observed and recorded.
Results
Whenever the monkeys found
it frightening they ran to the cloth
mother for comfort.
As the monkeys age increased
the response became even stronger.

8. Open Field Test
After six months of being in contact with the surrogate mothers Harlow wanted to see if attachments were formed after periods of separation.
Separated for a short period of time and then reunited
Monkeys placed in a small unfamiliar room containing various objects.
Wooden blocks, blankets, folded piece of paper
Things monkeys like to play with and manipulate
Situations
Cloth mother present
Wire mother present
No mother present

9. Results
If cloth mother was present the monkeys ran immediately to the cloth mother. Would eventually look at an object for a while and run to cloth mother again.

10. Results
Without the cloth mother the monkeys would freeze with fear, start crying, crouching and thumb sucking.
When wire mother was present the monkeys would act the same as the no mother condition.

11. Conclusions Bonding appears to be more important than food.
Went against what was thought of at the time
Harlow theorized that because the key to successful parenting is contact comfort, then males are just as able to care for a child as women.
This offered hope for adoptive parents and day care centers.

12. Discussion Questions
Can monkeys behaviors be comparable to humans? Why or Why not?
Do you think this study was a good representation of love attachment versus primary needs attachment?
Do you feel attachment as a child is a predictor of how you will love later in life?
Do you side with the Freudian perspective of attachment as a child due to oral fixation?