Essay on Harlow's Classic Research on Contact Comfort and Attachment

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Module 1, assignment 1 Harlow’s Classic Research on Contact Comfort and Attachment

1. Freudian’s view of a mother-child attachment is that it is based completely on oral gratification. Behaviourist’s view is based on the fact that the child feels attachment to its mother because she fulfills its physical needs. Although both views are centered on the infant receiving food, there are some differences. Freudian’s view pertains more to the fact that the infant is orally getting what it wants, which places the mother as their first love. Behaviourist views focus on a larger picture; as well as receiving food, the child also is held when it cries. This leads the child to associate getting what it wants from the mother.

2. Harlow conducted his studies with infant rhesus monkeys as opposed to infant humans for more than one reason. The most important reason was that it was unethical to do that kind of testing on a human baby. By removing the child from its mother and performing the variety of scientific testing on it, there was an unavoidable risk of the child suffering from psychological issues later on in life. Monkey infants are also less fragile than human babies are; this gives the scientists more opportunity to get accurate results. By testing monkeys, Harlow was also able to manipulate more variables because of the physical attributes of monkeys.

3. By creating two surrogate mothers for his monkeys, Harlow needed to have at least one critical difference separating them. He chose to make one covered in terry cloth, giving it the feel of a cuddly mother, and left the other just made of wire; both of the mothers dispensed milk and provided warmth.

4. The infant monkeys were naturally drawn to the mother best most represented their biological mother. Even the monkeys who were feeding off the wire mother automatically would go to the terry cloth one when given the opportunity. Harlow explained this preference by acknowledging the fact that the infants needed more than just their bodily needs fulfilled to thrive. The monkey’s emotional and relational needs were met when with the cloth mother through contact comfort. This means that even being in contact with that soft material was enough for the monkey to feel secure and comforted. It didn’t matter if that was the mother who was supplying milk or not.

5. Both Freudians and behaviourists views were contradicted through Harlow’s findings. By concluding that the monkeys felt attachment to something other than their food source proved that the term
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