Discovering Love

Adam Zoll and Kai Reinstein

Background

• H. F. Harlow experiments with infant attachment to mother

• Proposition: Must be some basic need in infants for close contact with something soft in addition to biological needs

Method

• Infant monkeys• Two constructed mothers:– Soft Mother– Wire Mother

• Three experiments:– 8 monkeys with access to both mothers– Fear experiment– Open field test with unknown objects– Test attachment after period of separation

Results

• Enormous preference for soft mother

• Fulfillment of biological needs not as important in monkeys’ choice of mother

Significance

• Need for contact comfort in infants• Reforms in institutional settings

Criticism

• Psychological damage to monkeys without a soft mother in any experiment

• Ethical to experiment on monkeys?

Further Applications

• Harlow later tested effects of abuse on monkeys with abusive constructed mother– Contact comfort outweighs abuse

• Experiments with skin-to-skin contact