Harlow's Observations in The Nature of Love - Research Paper Example

Harlow and the Nature of Love I. A Glance at the Nature of Love a) Hypothesis b) Methods c) Results d) Conclusions II. The Nature of Love and the History of Psychology III. Harlow and the Later Developments in Theories of Attachment a) Hypothesis b) Methods c) Results d) Conclusions IV. The relations between two articles V. Between the Two Articles a) The Changes in Psychology b) What Remains Same in Psychology VI. Conclusion I. A Glance at the Nature of Love Harlow’s ‘The Nature of Law’ was not only a landmark in the study of attachment and separation but also in creating innovative research designs. Through the rigorous study of the effects of separation and maternal care on infant monkeys, Harlow challenged many of the then established truths in psychology. a) Hypothesis Harlow’s (1958) hypothesis in this article is that "primary object-clinging," a need for intimate physical contact, which is initially associated with the mother” (p. 674) could be primary as opposite to the needs such as hunger and thirst. Further, the article attempts to examine the “relative importance of the stimulus variables determining the affectional or love responses in the neonatal and infant primate’ (Harlow, 1958, p. 674). b) Methods Harlow made the baby rhesus monkeys isolated from their mothers and they were given the choices of a two surrogate mothers, one made exclusively from terrycloth and the other from wire. Neonatal infant macaque monkey was used as the subject of Harlow’s research. Harlow’s team had three years of experience in working with rhesus monkeys. He used them for experiments as they mature more speedily than human infants but do not have much difference from the human infants in terms of “basic responses relating to affection, including nursing, contact, clinging, and even visual and auditory exploration” and more importantly, “the development of perception, fear, frustration, and learning capability follows very similar sequences in rhesus monkeys and human children” (ibid). The method of Harlow’s team involved the separation of infant monkeys from their mothers for definite times at definite intervals. For instance, they “had separated more than 60 of these animals from their mothers 6 to 12 hours after birth and suckled them on tiny Bottles” (Harlow, 1958, p. 674). The body of the surrogate mothers did not differ much “other than in the quality of the contact comfort which she can supply” (Harlow, 1958, p. 676). c) Results The result of the experiments was that the “bottle fed babies were healthier and heavier than monkey-mother-reared infants’ (Harlow, 1958, p. 675). It was mainly because of human scientists were more capable of feeding the infant monkey with better nutritious food and providing them with better care. More importantly, it was found that the “laboratory-raised babies showed strong attachment to the cloth pads (folded gauze diapers) which were used to cover the hardware-cloth floors of their cages. The infants clung to these pads and engaged in violent temper tantrums when the pads were removed and replaced for sanitary reasons” (ibid). It has also been discovered that “a baby monkey raised on a bare wire-mesh cage floor survives with difficulty, if at all, during the first five days of life” (ibid). d) Conclusions Therefore, the conclusion is that “the baby, human or monkey, if it is to survive, must clutch at more than a straw” (ibid). It has proved that “contact comfort might be a very important variable in the development of the infant's affection for the mother” (ibid). The experiments results lead us to the conclusion that “With age and opportunity to learn, subjects with the lactating wire mother showed decreasing responsiveness to her and increasing responsiveness to the nonlactating cloth mother, a finding completely contrary to any interpretation of derived drive in which the mother form becomes conditioned to hunger-thirst reduction” (ibid, p. 676). The nursing variable, Harlow’s team found that, is no way an unimportant variable as “contact comfort was an important basic affectional or love variable, but we did not expect it to overshadow so completely the variable of nursing” (ibid). II. The Nature of Love and the History of Psychology Harlow was primarily an experimental and comparative psychologist. Still, he has made substantial contributions to many areas of psychology such as cognition, behaviouralism, child development, animal intelligence, psychopathology treatment and so on. Harlow’s experiments on monkeys and social development fostered the cognitive revolution in the 1960s and took psychology away from the simplistic behaviorist explanations. The time period was dominated by behavioralism and psychoanalysis and both had many a priori assumptions on human attachment. Harlow’s experiments became instrumental in going beyond many of the assumptions of humanistic psychology, especially the hierarchy of needs paradigm developed by Abraham Maslov. Moreover, it rejected the deterministic aspects behavioral analysis too. The article was path breaking as it challenged not only some of the key assumptions of the existing psychology but also even the key concepts and keywords commonly used in psychological inquiries. His replacement of the word attachment with love as a key word in psychology had profound influence. In “The Nature of Love”, Harlow challenges the then prevailing instrumentalism and mechanistic approaches in psychology which dangerously undermined the importance and relevance of human affect in child development. It is ironical that even a stalwart in psychology such as Watson considered mother’s love as detrimental for the child. The era was characterized by psychologists’ one dimensional and monotonous attempts to seek only what is observable and quantifiable. However, the zeitgeist of behavioral psychology could not deter the Harry Harlow from studying love and affection which are not easily either quantifiable or measurable. Although his experimental designs were controversial and less likely to pass the ethical test from present day standards, he was able to demonstrate the power of love, based on the experiments on infant rhesus monkeys. Previously, there was a complete lack of experimental research on variables such as love and its effects on child development. Importantly, it is Harlow who challenged the food determinism in child psychology wherein the attachment between mother and child was seen simply in terms of child’s food security. The surrogate mother experiments conducted by Harlow proved that “contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional response, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance” (1958, p. 676). It was a revolutionary theoretical assertion by the standards of late 1950s. Besides, his experiments have also proved that the presence of the mother makes the infant relaxed, free and calm. On the other hand, the absence of mother enhances fear and insecurity in the child. Harlow’s biggest contribution to psychology is that he irrefutably proved the vitality of mother’s care in the child development, which has considerably influenced the real life child care practices as well. Harlow was instrumental psychology’s epochal turn of emphasis from physical variables to psychological variables in understanding the nuances of child development. Harlow’s experiments have also inspired many leading theorists on human attachment such as Bowlby and Suomi. It is no exaggeration to say that Harlow opened up a new path in psychology which was until then less traversed. III. Harlow and the Later Developments in Theories of Attachment The paper “At the intersection of social and cognitive development: Internal working models of attachment in infancy” extends the experiments on infant attachment using technologically sophisticated research design and confirms the major insights provided by theorists such as Harlow and Bowlby. The paper attempts to reveal the complexities of infants’ internal world in seeking comfort from care givers. The paper asserts the role of infant choices in receiving comfort from the caregivers. a) Hypothesis The hypothesis of the article is that caregiver-infant interactions and the related expectations are crucial in understanding infant’s attachment behavior in the Strange Situation procedure (Johnson et al., 2010). Moreover, it examines whether their have stood the test of time or not. The paper also tests Bowlby’s original hypothesis that “infants form internal working models of attachment that are expressed in infants’ own behavior” (Johnson et al., 2010, p. 807). The paper is inspired by the theoretical formulation of Bowlby that infant’s attachment to the caregiver is closely related to the internal working models of the social world. b) Methods The paper is based on three visual habituation studies which uses abstract animations. The method involved the testing of different expectations of caregiver’s responsiveness. With the use of the displays of animated geometric characters, the infant’s expectations were tested. And, the Strange Situation sessions were then blindcoded to analyze the visual looking times of all infants. Xhab software was used to measure infant’s looking time. c) Results The habituation trial results show that “infants’ expectations of a caregiver’s responsiveness differ depending on their own attachment status” (Johnson et al., 2010, p. 814). The expectations of securely and insecurely attached infants had stark differences. Besides, the results of study 2 show that expectation could vary with relations to infant’s attachment status. “There exists a positive relationship between “infants’ expectations of caregiver” expressed as longer looking time at responsive caregivers and “the quality of their own caregiver relationships” expressed as the responsiveness of the caregiver (Johnson et al., 2010, p. 821). d) Conclusions The present study concludes that “infants’ behavior in the Strange Situation procedure corresponds to their expectations about caregiver–infant interactions” (Johnson et al., 2010, p. 821). Three patterns of expectations were revealed, which involve a) securely attached infants- infants must seek comfort from care givers and caregivers must provide comfort; b) insecure resistant infants- infants must seek comfort from caregivers while caregivers are supposed to withhold it; c) finally, insecure avoidant infants- either seeking of comfort or providing comfort is not expected. IV. The relations between two articles Both the articles examined in this paper deals with the experimental design Harlow developed for sophisticating his theories of attachment using infant monkeys. The hypothesis of the paper is based on the theoretical formulations of Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby both were active research collaborators of Harlow. Although indirectly, the research findings in Johnson et al.’s paper are confirming to Harlow’s original proposal that maternal care is primarily about comfort gratification. The theoretical insights of the paper are derived from the ethological theory developed by Harlow and his successors. V. Between the Two Articles a) The Changes in Psychology Psychology as a field of study has changed a lot from the time Harlow written his path breaking work on infant monkeys and the development of present day attachment theories. The paradigm shift occurred is with the methodology as there is more reliance on technology and softwares for conducing experiments. There is a substantial shift from positivism to more ethical and moral studies in the field of psychology, using more innovative and sophisticated research designs which allow the researcher to experiment without inflicting severe pain on the subjects. b) What Remains Same in Psychology What remains same in psychology is essentially related to the aim and scope of psychology as a field of enquiry. Still too, as in the times of Harlow, psychology attempts to deal with complex issues of child development through innovative research designs. Moreover, psychology remains same in its endeavor to invent the underlying principles which govern human life. V. Conclusion Harlow’s pioneering research on the infant monkeys to assess the effects of maternal separation and the influence of maternal contact has opened up new possibilities for the field of psychology itself. The article “The Nature of Love” reveals the concerns and preoccupations Harlow had while he was pursuing his well-known experiments. Harlow’s article shed light on his prolonged researches on infant monkey’s and the insights he derived from experimenting on infant monkeys. On the other hand, Johnson et al.’s article validates the central postulates of Harlow and his successors’ assertions on human attachment. References Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, Vol.13, pp. 673-685.  Johnson, S. C. et al., (2010). At the intersection of social and cognitive development: Internal working models of attachment in infancy. Cognitive Science, Vol. 34, pp. 807-825. Read More