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===Book Chapters===
 
===Book Chapters===
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*Harlow, H. F. I 1949) The formation of learning sets, Psychological Review, 56. 51-65.
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*Blum, Deborah. ''The Monkey Wars''. Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-510109-X
 
*Blum, Deborah. ''The Monkey Wars''. Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-510109-X
 
*Blum, Deborah. ''Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection''. Perseus Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-7382-0278-9
 
*Blum, Deborah. ''Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection''. Perseus Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-7382-0278-9
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*Rumbaugh, D. M. (1997) The psychology of Harry P. Harlow: A bridge from radical to rational behaviorism. [[Philosophical Psychology]], 1.0(2), 197-210.
 
*Slater, Lauren. ''Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century''. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-393-05095-5
 
*Slater, Lauren. ''Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century''. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-393-05095-5
   

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Harry F. Harlow (October 31, 19051981) was an American psychologist best known for his studies on affection and development using rhesus monkeys and surrogate wire or terrycloth mothers. Born Harry Israel on Halloween night, he changed his name to Harry Harlow in 1930. He earned his BA and Ph.D. from Stanford University, and did his research primarily at the University of Wisconsin where he worked for a time with humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow.

Surrogate mother experiment

Rhesus Macaques 4528

Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) Hainan island, China. These macaques are the most common monkeys used in biomedical research.

Main article: Love (scientific views)

In his most famous experiment, Harlow offered young rhesus monkeys a choice between two surrogate mothers. In the first group, the terrycloth mother provided no food and wire mother provided food. In the second group, the terrycloth mother provided food and the wire mother did not. It was found that the young monkeys spent as little time as possible with the wire mother and otherwise clung to the terrycloth mother whether she could provide them with food or not. Apparently the terrycloth mothers provided something that was more valuable to the young monkeys than food. She was providing contact comfort. Harlow's interpretation - which is still prevalent today - was that the preference for the terrycloth mother demonstrated the importance of affection and emotional nurturance in mother-child relationships.

Whenever a frightening stimulus was brought into the cage the monkeys ran to the cloth mother for protection and comfort no matter which mother provided them with food. Surprisingly, this response only increased as the monkeys grew older.

Also, when the monkeys were placed in a strange, new place with their cloth mothers, they clung to her until they felt secure enough to explore. Even once they began to explore they would occasionally return to the cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys placed in a strange place without their cloth mothers acted very differently. They would freeze in fear and cry, crouch down, or suck their thumbs. Some of the monkeys would even run from object to object searching for the cloth mother as they cried and screamed. But what is most surprising about this experiment is that monkeys placed in this situation with their wire mothers exhbited the same behaviors that the monkeys with no mother accompaning them did.

Once the monkeys reached an age where they could eat solid foods they were separated from their cloth mothers for 30 days. When they were reunited with their mothers in the same strange room for three minutes they clung to them and did not venture off to explore like they had in previous situations. Harlow determined from this that the need for contact comfort was stronger than the need to explore.

The study also found that monkeys who were raised with only a wire mother or a cloth mother gained weight at the same rate. However, the monkeys that only had a wire mother had trouble digesting the milk and suffered from diarrhea more frequently. These results suggest that not having contact comfort was psychologically stressful to the monkeys.

Discussion of results

These findings contradicted both the then common American pedagogic advice of limiting or avoiding bodily contact in an attempt to avoid spoiling especially male children and the insistence of the then dominant behaviorist school of psychology that emotions were negligible. Feeding was thought to be the most important factor in the formation of a mother-child bond. However, Harlow stated that nursing strengthened the mother-child bond because of the intimate body contact that it provided. Harlow himself described his experiments as a study of love. He also believed that 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.

While Harlow's result were very dramatic and profound, many people questioned whether his research was applicable to human beings. Many studies that followed have offered evidence supporting the idea that the attachment of human children to their caregivers goes far beyond a desire for biological needs to be fulfilled.

Harlow's research, while controversial, has provided insight into the behaviors of abused children, has improved methods of giving care to institutionalized children, and has allowed fathers and adoptive parents to feel confident in providing parental care.

Later research

Harlow was well-known for refusing to use euphemisms and instead chose deliberately outrageous terms for the experimental apparatus he devised, including a forced mating device he called a "rape rack", tormenting surrogate mother devices he called "iron maidens" and an isolation chamber he called the "pit of despair." In the latter of these devices, alternatively called the "well of despair", baby monkeys would be left alone in darkness for up to six weeks. This procedure produced monkeys that were severely psychologically disturbed and themselves unable to raise children.

While many of his experiments would be considered unethical today, their nature and Harlow's descriptions of them heightened awareness of the treatment of laboratory animals and thus paradoxically contributed somewhat to today's ethics regulations.

In 1958, he was elected president of the American Psychological Association, at which time he presented his seminal paper, The Nature of Love.

Harlow's lab was known as "Goon Park" because of its location at 600 N. Park St. (a hastily written "6" often resembled a "G"), hence the title of the biography by Deborah Blum: Love At Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection.

He was known to his students at the University of Wisconsin as "Monkey Man". (Source: student at University of Wisconsin, David Michael Miller, 1957-1959.

See also

Publications

Books

Harlow, H F and Harlow CM (1986) Learning to Love: The Selected Papers of H.F.Harlow (Centennial Psychology Series).Greenwood Press ISBN 0275922243

  • Harlow,H F and Mears, C (1979).The Human Model: Primate Perspectives. John Wiley & Sons Inc ISBN 0470266422
  • Harlow, HF (1971) Learning to Love Jones and Bartlett Publishers International ISBN 0878436065

Book Chapters

  • Harlow, H. F. I 1949) The formation of learning sets, Psychological Review, 56. 51-65.


Papers

Harlow, H.F. (1949) The formation of learning sets, Psychological Review 56: 51-65. Harlow, H.F. (1959) Love in infant monkeys, Scientific American 200(6): 64-74. Harlow, H.F. and Harlow, M.K. (1949) Learning sets. In: Scientific American Offprints, New York: W.H. Freeman. Harlow, H.F. and Harlow, M.K. (1962) Social deprivation in monkeys, Scientific American 207(5): 136-46. Harlow, H.F., Harlow, M.K. and Hansen, E.W. (1963) The maternal affectional system of rhesus monkeys. In: H.L. Rheingold (ed.) Maternal Behaviour in Mammals, New York: John Wiley.


Further reading

  • Blum, Deborah. The Monkey Wars. Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-510109-X
  • Blum, Deborah. Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. Perseus Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0-7382-0278-9
  • Rumbaugh, D. M. (1997) The psychology of Harry P. Harlow: A bridge from radical to rational behaviorism. Philosophical Psychology, 1.0(2), 197-210.
  • Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004, ISBN 0-393-05095-5

External links


  • de:Harry Harlow

he:הארי הארלו

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